


Eternity Rising: Family Ties

by SubverbalDreams



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abuse, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dark, Darkfic, Devyn is 16, Drug Dealing, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Father/Son Incest, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Physical Abuse, Rape, Rape/Non-con Elements, Reluctant Hero, Rescue, Scars, Sexual Abuse, Stockholm Syndrome, Supernatural Elements, Vampires, Verbal Abuse, Whipping, Whump, and his dad is going the fuck down, but you will want to kill him waaaaaay before then
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-05-29 13:55:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 63,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19401694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SubverbalDreams/pseuds/SubverbalDreams
Summary: Michael Jacobs had only started managing Club 513 two months ago and already, he'd found trouble.The club owner's son, Devyn, had been self-harming. Maybe a smarter man could just look away, but Michael always did have more heart than brains. He didn't expect a simple phone call to Jason to go where it did. He sure as hell never expected to end up dating the richest man in town.Even less did he expect what he found one night, bound to the bedpost in Jason's master bedroom.





	1. Prologue and Chapter 1: Club 513

**Author's Note:**

> Hey frens. This was the first full length novel I ever wrote, back in 2013. Rescuing Devyn from the bottom of hell was everything, back then.
> 
> This is my first time sharing it. I hope you love it. The writing may not be as good as my current stuff, but that's where I was at the time and I'm still in love with this story. I’ll post 1 chapter per week. It’s about 200k words total.
> 
> It will be very dark, but the good guys will prevail in the end.
> 
>  **TW: Graphic father/son abusive incest, starting at the end of Chapter 1.** You’ll see it coming and can skip to Ch3 if needed. Jason will get what's coming to him, in the end. You will want to slaughter him way before then.
> 
> Devyn stars in 2 of my other stories: [**Ghost on the Highway**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17245922/chapters/40556258), and [**Back into the Fray**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17258645/chapters/40585418), as a (somewhat) recovered adult.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize right now to the actors and models whose faces inspired me. You guys are great, my brain is broken, please ignore me, thanks. It's just how I picture the characters.

** PROLOGUE **

Senator Martin Brantley’s wandering eyes managed to focus down at his screen, but they quickly bounced back up to the shimmering double helix in front of him. He was so close now. He could feel himself tipping at the edge of the universe, out over a screaming expanse of icy black nothing. 

Well...not entirely _nothing_. Something was out there, he knew. Something to catch him, once he finally made it past the tipping point.

_You are so close to me now,_ his angel's voice repeated inside him. He closed his eyes as the ache surged forward, as it battered the walls of his chest. His muse, his secret companion, had led him this far, and he wanted so badly for their separation to end. He was obsessed; at least, his brain told him the word fit, but it was just a random string of noises without meaning to him now, joining the jumbled pile that represented his discarded life of success, power, and politics. All the affairs of state and country had disappeared for him three years prior, when she first came to him...when she uncovered the searing emptiness in his soul. He had been sleeping, or he thought he had been...

_…Until he realized he was no longer alone, and he rose from the bed._ _A light appeared, but not to his eyes; rather, it was an illumination that showed him, with merciless clarity, the stark ludicrousness of his existence. He sank to his knees. Despair was instant and overpowering; he could only kneel there, curled around the blasted void that he had once thought was his soul._

_There, in that dark hole, silvery feathers bloomed and twined through his vision. They pierced the blackness in whorling streaks of cold light. They came to him in the pit of that misery and traced deeply into him, impressing a clear communication into his mind:_

**Yearning one, I have been waiting for you.**

_"Who are you?" he moaned out loud. His eyes saw an empty, dark room before him, but a pattern of light coalesced inside his thoughts into the vague form of a human figure. Encapsulated in a bubble of perfect blackness, the form itself was a scintillating white. Two spiraling rainbows of light flowed around and through it. Its arms opened to him as if in welcome and he reached out physically in response._

**Leandriel. I am Leandriel. I am...** _and the figure said something that slid through his brain as though it were too alien a concept to find purchase, but the meaning he caught was: "I am your completion."_

_"Yes," he cried out, as though to a proposal. He continued to reach, but the connection grew no stronger. Agitation emanated from the figure of light._

**We are separated by...**

_What followed was a concept his mind rejected. The closest he could fathom was that it was some kind of barrier._

_"How can I reach you?" he asked desperately. He realized he was weeping. He hadn't cried a tear in years, but they sluiced down his face and pattered onto his knees in a steady stream. The rainbow lights winked in turn at him; they flowed more slowly around the figure, as if to soothe his anguish._

**I will show you the way,** _Leandriel promised him._

From that moment, he had been consumed. Any meaning he had previously known in life fell away as he labored to fulfill the being's instructions. He had located and gained leadership of an almost unknown piece of research called the Speculation Project, hidden in the sparse emptiness of the Nevada desert, just a few miles northwest of the now-defunct Nellis Air Force Range. There were only three researchers involved at that point; everyone else had been laid off, and funding was about to be cut. The project had been near extinction, but those who remained were passionate to keep it alive. They had explained to him that they had discovered, and were in the process of exploring, a phenomenon they had dubbed "Eternity." They believed that, combined with stem cell research, it may have applications in breakthroughs such as limb regrowth, brain tissue regeneration, and even reanimation of dead tissue. After years of research, and expensive trial-and-error, they had managed to isolate and contain a small mass of the anomaly. The Senator had gasped out loud when they unveiled the isolate to him, but what they took to be amazement was actually recognition; the scintillating double helix, suspended within a network of slender azure beams, was the same as that which surrounded his muse.

_It took some doing, at first. They didn't trust him, bureaucrat that he was. But at last, he managed to gain full access in the lab. The moment he was alone, Leandriel imprinted the pathway on his mind. Following those explicit instructions, he adjusted the settings on the containment field. A low thrum shifted the air, making his eardrums vibrate. It got louder and louder, until he clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. His head began to pound. He braced himself against the console and stared in astonishment as the spiraling double helix began to..._

_…to_ rain _._

_Winking stars fell from the helix of light into the container he had already placed below. He stared, fascinated, until a spike of pain jackhammered through his head and drove him to his knees. He clapped a hand over his face and screamed. He barely got his other hand onto the console; still clutching his face like it would explode, he let his hand be guided over the controls without looking at them. The thrum faded away and the pain quickly receded. When he took his palm from his face, there were drops of blood on it. He wiped his left eye and his finger came away red._

_The injury quickly faded from his perception, however, as he became aware of the tug he felt from the center of the room. He levered himself up and paced over in wonder to see what had happened. The container was filled to the brink with what looked like a million tiny, spherical, bioluminescent jellyfish. He gingerly picked one up and stared in reverent awe at the foggy, miniature double helix slowly turning inside the sphere--as though it had formed, like a snowflake, then been caught and imprisoned in cloudy gelatin. Eternity in a bubble._

_Reluctantly forsaking his curiosity, he gingerly replaced the sphere with the others, carefully covered them, and hurried to his car; his next step was to rendezvous with Treske: the man, Leandriel told him, who would open the door for her to enter this world._

_Treske was...unsettling. His skin was preternaturally white, and his eyes were so disturbing that Martin always carefully avoided direct eye contact. He was, for all intent and purpose, a drug dealer...but Martin’s discomfort and his distaste were overcome by necessity. The money would fund the project, but the spheres...it was imperative that they be spread._

_As far and as wide as possible._

Three years of faithful service, and he felt the end of his trial so near to him, the weight of it was almost unbearable. 

**_Soon,_** Leandriel whispered, the word impressing over Martin’s thoughts like a stamp into clay. Nearly all his thoughts were his angel's, now. One stamp after another, etching a new pattern into him, creating in him a new terrain. 

All that remained of him was the ache.

**1**

**CLUB 513**

"Dev, you got a minute?" 

The young man stopped in the doorway of the office as he was about to leave, frozen by Michael's voice. 

"Yes sir." Perfectly polite, as always. He let the door swing shut and turned back toward Michael, who gestured him toward the chair in front of his desk. Devyn edged into it and sat tensely, never looking up. Michael pulled a chair around and sat across from him. He slouched back in his own seat, trying to appear less imposing than he was. At six-foot-six and with his athletic build, people expected him to be the bouncer, not the manager. He laced his fingers across his stomach and tried to peer through that mask of straight, black hair that Devyn seemed to almost hide behind. He saw a flash of light reflecting off the boy's eyes for a second, then it was gone. He chewed the inside of his cheek, choosing his next words with care. 

Michael Jacobs had only started managing Club 513 two months ago. He had, in fact, been a bouncer in his past life, but it paid for shit. Through his twenties he'd worked various positions at various clubs and in the end he found he had a knack for keeping the lot of alcoholic misfits known as bar workers in line—which paid damn well for a guy who had barely scraped through high school. As for the kid sitting across from him, Devyn's father owned every club in town. Michael had never met the owner, himself, only the fellow who ran the five clubs in this zip code. Apparently, the kid was allowed to help move boxes and work in the office during the summer break. He couldn't have been more than eighteen, but Michael didn't think too much of it; there was always under-the-table work to be done around a club, and the kid didn't try to sneak drinks or get into trouble.

This one had certainly caught his attention, though. They had crossed paths for the first time only four weeks ago, and he could recall every second of it with perfect clarity. As he had come in to the club around 4 p.m. to begin the evening's work, the boy was just finishing setup on the stage speakers. His hair hung to his chin and stayed swung forward over his eyes, hiding his face. He was broad-shouldered, and appeared muscular beneath the long-sleeved green shirt he wore. Michael never caught him looking up except with his head lowered, eyes hidden behind that black waterfall. He was so quiet he might as well have been a ghost. Finally, as the kid was about to walk out the door, Michael stepped halfway in front of him and introduced himself. Only then, the young man turned his head and looked at him a bit sideways—and Michael's heart had tugged in his chest, leaving him strangely breathless. 

A flash of drowningly deep blue eyes circled with a starburst ring of pure gold: large, and almond-shaped, with heavy lids and thick black lashes. 

A straight, perfect nose and full pink lips.

A catlike jawline which slashed in a subtle, sensuous arc from the turn of his jaw to the square of his chin. 

_Stunning,_ was all he'd been able to think for a surprised moment.

"Pleased to meet you, sir," he'd heard the boy say—and when had he last heard someone talk that way anywhere, much less in a night club?—then that black hair was back over his face, and he was gone. Michael remembered staring after him and feeling his age like a weight across his shoulders. At thirty-five, he was new to the city. He was not, however, new to being alone. 

Solitude didn't bother him. He felt that he kept good company in it.

He'd taken note, over the time that passed, that this handsome youth seemed to have no friends; Michael never actually saw him talk with anyone voluntarily. There were a few women who came in before he left for the day, early on before the club officially opened. They found ways to put themselves in the young man's line of sight, posturing in thinly veiled attempts to catch his notice, but he never showed interest, or even acknowledged them, except with that same, very brief politeness. 

Then there was today. Michael had passed a stack of papers to Devyn while the boy sat behind the desk, filing, and he had happened to glance down as Devyn reached up and out for them. His long sleeve had pulled back a little to reveal two curved, scabbed red lines crossing the inner curve of his wrist. Devyn hadn't seen him notice it.

Michael thought of those red slashes as he looked at the young man now seated in front of him, and said carefully, "I just wanted to talk with you and see if there's anything I can do for you."

"I'm fine, sir. Thank you," Devyn responded in that expressionless voice. 

Michael tried not to scowl. The total lack of inflection was beginning to grate on his nerves. "You want to tell me what happened to your arm?" He wished he could see the boy's face. Had he just gone very still? It was hard to tell. 

"My arm?"

"I saw you got cut up or something. Looked kind of nasty. Do you want to get it looked at?"

"No, thank you, sir, I'm fine," Devyn said again. "I'm sorry sir, I need to go now. My father is picking me up right now and he has to get back to work right away." Even as he spoke, he was getting up and sidling toward the door.

"Devyn—" Michael started to get up as the boy slipped out of the room. Devyn's voice came back to him from outside. 

"Thank you sir good night," came all in a rush, the last two words cut off as the door shut between them.

_What the hell?_

He got up and walked out of the small office. Devyn was already gone. Michael strode to the club's back exit; the kid could have gone out front, but most of the staff caught rides in the alleyway behind the club, especially at night when the front lot became packed.

The alleyway was empty. Michael turned back into the club, feeling equal parts disappointed and relieved. He didn't need to get involved with this. The relief lasted nearly an hour as the activity throughout the club slowly picked up, as the evening workers and bartenders filtered in. The whole time, a girl's name tickled at the back of his mind. Sandra...or maybe it had been Sarah...a friend of his thirteen-year-old sister...just a memory from his early twenties. Her head always lowered, hair covering her face. Red stripes inexpertly concealed by a wide bracelet. And when they got the news... 

He kept flashing back to his sister, curled up on her small bed in their cheap efficiency. The curtain Michael had put up around her bed for privacy had done nothing to block the sound of her crying.

_Dammit_...he looked toward the front door for the tenth time, as though Devyn would come strolling by and he could finish talking to him. He wasn't going to let it go—he'd pick the conversation back up tomorrow night. 

But what if the kid freaked out because Michael had confronted him and did something tonight? The other girl had been gone so suddenly...completely out of the blue...

_Fucking dammit._

Michael turned on his heel and strode back to the office. He locked the door and sat behind his desk, where he flipped through the rolodex until he found the card for Jason Corbin, Owner. He was a doer, not a dweller; he had to get it out of the way, or it would keep haunting him. It was a way of life built out of self-defense, because when he wasn't moving, he tended to get tangled up in his own thoughts.

_Always a sucker for a lost soul. Why can't you just let people go?_ He was dialing the number even as he chided himself, but he knew the answer. A kid like that wasn't going to reach out. He had to at least feel out the situation. He wasn't necessarily going to say anything. So he told himself. The phone denied him a chance to change his mind, in any case; it rang only once before being picked up. 

"Hello," said a man's deep voice.

"Hi, Mr. Corbin?"

"Who is this?" Brief. Curt. Potentially irritated. 

"This is Michael Jacobs, I'm the new manager at Club 513 on Parkland. How you doing?"

"Why are you calling?"

Michael winced. _I'm fine, too; thanks._ Okay, so the guy wasn't into chitchat. He gave up the buddy approach and went for business.

"I was actually calling about your son."

"Is something wrong?" 

The tone behind the question had changed, just then, but subtly enough that Michael couldn't quite interpret it.

"Well, I'm kind of concerned about him," he said. He kept a confident, deliberate tone, though he kicked himself even as he added: "I'd like if we could talk about it in person, though." 

_Foot. Mouth. Genius._ He grimaced and rapped his knuckles against his forehead. In a handful of words, he had already received the impression that this guy would not be terribly understanding about being tracked down and alarmed over a couple of random scratches, but it was too late now. The image of those scabbed red lines and the secretive posture kept him from trying to backpedal. 

Even if he _was_ about to get canned over the phone. 

There was a pause on the line. "I see. Why don't you come by the house tonight and we can discuss it?"

Michael's eyebrows shot up. "Tonight?" he stalled, wondering if he had heard correctly, but that deep voice cut in. 

"Mr. Jacobs, I'm sure you can appreciate I am a very busy man. I don't have time to drop by 513 this week. But if it was important enough that you would _call my personal phone"_ —he put emphasis on that last part, making it eminently clear that this had better be important—"then I would appreciate it if you will come by. I want to know what's going on with my boy." He started rattling off an address; Michael scrambled for a pen and scratched it out.

_Shit, shit, shit_. "Sure, alright. I'll come by at nine?"

"See you then," Devyn's father said, and hung up.

Michael put one of the staff in charge and shrugged into his jacket as he left the club. He was surprised at how cold it was; he'd expected California to be a bit more balmy, especially during the summer, but the air was crisp. Gravel crunched underfoot as he traversed the alleyway behind Club 513 which led to the staff parking.

"Hey?"

The voice was soft and uncertain. Michael's eyebrows drew together and he looked over his shoulder, tensing. Sommet was a big city, and the alleyways weren't particularly safe—not even for a man of his size who knew how to fight.

The speaker was a young man. He looked to be around twenty-five, which had Michael's eyes snapping all around them both, looking for other gang members. This kid didn't look like he was in a gang, though. He looked rumpled and too thin, but his clothes were preppy, and so was his bleached-blond haircut.

"Hey, man. What's up?" Michael asked, neither friendly nor unfriendly.

The young man licked his lips, his brown eyes darting to his feet and back up to Michael nervously. Something in his eyes seemed lost, and it aroused an uncomfortable protective instinct in Michael's chest.

_Let's only get involved in one tragedy at a time, shall we?_

"Do you have...any money?"

"Sorry, I don't carry cash," Michael lied, and turned away. He wasn't about to get shot when he revealed his wallet.

"Wait! Please!" The tone was desperate. Michael stopped walking, and turned back to the young man.

"I need....do you know where I can find Eternity? Do they have it here?" the young man asked, gesturing toward the club.

Ah. That explained some. Eternity was a high-priced drug. Hence, the preppy. It was also highly addictive. Ergo the lost child look. Michael blew out a sigh.

"No, absolutely not. Go home, kid."

His heart sank when the blond's face crumbled. The young man's entire body slumped and he leaned sideways against the back wall of Club 513. Tears came to his eyes, and Michael watched awkwardly as the young man started to quietly cry.

Michael closed his eyes, briefly. He knew it was stupid, and wouldn't help the kid, but he withdrew his wallet and pulled out a twenty. He was ridiculously well paid at this new job and he wouldn't miss it, but he had a feeling even that much wouldn't get the kid a single hit of what he was craving.

"Here," he said resignedly, holding it out.

The blond looked up, for all the world looking like a kicked puppy. His eyes fastened on the bill, read the number on it, and widened hopefully. He lunged forward and caught it so quickly Michael took a startled step back.

"Thank you thank you thank you," the young man babbled and Michael felt ten times worse about his action than he had a moment before.

"Just...swear to me you'll get a cheeseburger or something," he grumbled, knowing there wasn't a chance in hell of that happening. The blond bobbed his head up and down, holding the twenty to his chest with both hands and backing away.

Michael watched him leave the alley before he resumed walking—a bit more swiftly than before—to his car.

~~~~~

Michael was impressed as he pulled up to the house. It was on the edge of town, like his, but unlike his small, rundown, rented house on a big lot, this was a large, attractive two-story house with a huge lawn and a gated drive. The house—or maybe _estate_ was the appropriate word—wasn't even visible from the road, and he had to press an intercom and announce himself to get in. Considering how rich this guy must be, it was all surprisingly tasteful. The house and yard were big and well manicured, but not ostentatious. It all had a minimalist feel.

A man stood outside the front door; he waved as Michael walked up. It was a struggle not to outright stare at Devyn's father, because there was no doubt this was him. He must have been very young, himself, when Devyn was born, because he looked to be only a little older than Michael—in his late thirties, or possibly even early forties, judging by the lines around his mouth and the streaks of gray in his stylishly cut, thick black hair. He, like his son, was drop-dead gorgeous—only he had long since passed through the transition of puberty and his almond shaped eyes (they were the same eyes as Devyn's, but solid gray), rimmed with heavy black lashes, looked sharp and confident under the thick slashes of his brows. His features were beautiful and masculine all at once. _Devyn's mother must be a supermodel or something,_ Michael thought inanely, thinking of the boy's lush, pink lips. Those must have come from Devyn's mother. Jason Corbin didn't have the same curves to his mouth. He was tall, and his broad shoulders strained at the thin material of the gray button-down shirt he wore tucked into blue jeans. Black army boots showed beneath the hem of his jeans, giving an edge to the ensemble. His face and bearing exuded a raw sexuality, which added a whole realm of awkwardness to the already uncomfortable encounter. Michael realized his eyes were glued to the "v" of Jason's shirt neckline, and quickly raised them. It was only then that he noticed the look—but he didn't know what to make of it. 

Once upon a time in New Orleans, when money had been tight and he’d had two half-siblings to support, Michael had held two jobs: assistant teacher in a jiu jitsu studio, and bouncer at a gay bar in a rough side of town. He’d come to be highly aware of two particular looks that men tend to give to other men. One was the assessment of someone they expected to fight. Their eyes would roam over the other person, collecting data and storing it: checking for weapons, fitness, threat level. The other was the dark-eyed appreciation of someone they’d like to fuck; everyone knew that look. Right now it felt as though Jason had given him a mix between those two looks, but he hadn't caught enough of it to be certain that it wasn’t just his imagination.

"Mr. Corbin, good to meet you," he said a bit too quickly, walking up and grasping the other man's hand. Jason's grip was cool and firm without being crushing. Confidence.

"Come on in." 

Jason held the door and stepped back just barely enough to let Michael walk through. Michael turned slightly to get past him and found that they were eye-level with each other—not something that happened often, for him. Which meant that either Devyn's mother was short, or he still had a lot of growing to do—but no, it had to be the former. He was too old to be shooting up another twelve inches. 

Jason's cologne wafted across him like an enticing ghost. The scent pulled his gaze back to Jason's thick neck and chest, and again, he had to catch himself. 

_Cool it_. _Keep it professional._ _This guy could_ literally _make sure you never work in this town again._

He had moved around a lot in the last few years, and the truth was that the loneliness of the road, which had once been part of its appeal, had begun to get under his skin. He'd spent a year in New York City, paying his way as assistant teacher at a large mixed martial arts studio, followed by a six-month hiatus in Arizona, making good money for short hours as a bartender (he'd had to keep his orientation a secret, but he'd found that lonely women would tip him extravagantly in exchange for a little flirtatious dialogue). The men he picked up, he never kept around more than a few nights. Now here he was in Sommet, a metropolitan city he'd picked semi-randomly off the map—the 'semi' being that it wasn't far from San Francisco—and though he enjoyed his own company, he wasn't averse to the company of a good looking guy, either. One with intense gray eyes, maybe...

Jason settled him in a white leather chair in a wide, sparsely furnished room. The walls were painted white, and the floor was white marble. Though the room was large, there were no windows. Jason handed him an expensive imported beer, and sat down in a matching chair across from him. Everything inside the house that Michael could see was like its exterior: modern, stylish, and sparse. There were stairs along one wall leading to a second floor balcony which disappeared around a corner. Even the railing was elegantly minimalistic, with a modern steel finish. He realized he had been staring around himself, and wondered if he seemed odd. He cleared his throat. Jason's eyebrows arched at the edges expectantly. His eyes roamed down from Michael's face to focus on his neck. 

Michael's tattoo wasn't something he could hide. Jason was looking at the black and red lines that snaked up the front and left side of his neck in a fan of sharp points, shorter toward the front of his throat and longer toward the back, with the last of them slashing up behind his ear. He was used to this initial assessment. Sure enough, the next look went to his left hand. The artwork continued where the cuff of his shirt ended: slightly faded black lines striped along the back of his hand bones, and thick blocks of black ink covering the back of each finger, except for the knuckles. He'd begun the piece when he was twenty three, with some touches added here and there later on. The black and crimson lines looked abstract at first, until you looked at it just right and realized it was a dragon. The sharp fan that showed above his shirt collar was a wing. The tail coiled around his forearm and ended in a pointed triangle at the wrist, after which it became a splay of angular, geometric shapes, all the way down to his fingernails. A lot of the more upscale clubs had rules about visible tattoos on managers, but Club 513 wasn't one of them—as far as he'd ever been told. He still felt on edge until Jason finished his once-over and looked back into his eyes.

"So tell me, Mr. Jacobs, what's concerning you?"

"Call me Michael," he said with his best winning smile. Jason smiled back at him, showing perfect white teeth. His smile was rakishly charming. 

_You've got no idea what you're doing to me right now._ Dammit, out of anyone in the world, why did this man have to be his boss's boss? 

"And you call me Jason," the other man responded warmly. "It's good to finally meet you; my boy's always talking about you."

"Me?" Michael asked, a bit taken aback. Devyn had barely ever glanced his way.

Jason half-grinned, raised his eyebrows in comradely amusement. "Yeah, you," he chuckled. "You know how teens are. He thinks it's 'so cool' working at the bar with his..." Jason's eyes flickered down Michael's body and back up to his face, "...new manager. Said the old guy was ugly." Jason twisted the cap off his beer bottle and tipped it toward Michael with a wink. "He likes you."

Jason leaned back in his chair and took a drink, watching him. His full lower lip glistened afterward, and he ran his tongue over it—not in an obvious way, probably just habit, but it felt like a statement all on its own. That amusement never left his face. Michael sat in an unbelievably tense silence. What the hell was that all about? Was Jason saying his son thought he was hot? Was this some kind of protective-father trap? He was 'out' to a lot of people, here, but that had nothing to do with Jason's kid and he sure as hell didn't want it to come off that way. He was _so_ not into boys. Jason, on the other hand...Michael noticed how close their chairs were and swallowed. He was quickly realizing that he should never have come to the man's house. His neck felt itchy and all he could think of was not scratching it. 

_Holy fuck, this is like a bad dream_. Jason had thrown him completely off his game. He again moved his eyes away to keep from staring at the other man and dove in to the difficult subject. It had to be safer than trying to respond to the opening Jason had just played. 

"Jason." 

Damn, that name tasted good on his tongue.

"I'm sure you know your son is a very hard worker. He's very polite, always on time; he does a great job." He saw the man's expression flatten into something inscrutable and hurried, "but the reason I'm here isn't—it's that..." Since when did he stutter like this? He cleared his throat. "Well, he's always been really withdrawn. He doesn't, ah, talk to anyone."

Jason gave him an assessing look. Michael could have slapped himself. He could barely hear the words coming out of his mouth. All he kept thinking was of the gorgeous man in front of him, the full bank account he had from the high-paying gig he had going on right now, and the likelihood that he was now going to trip over his tongue and lose it because he couldn't stop salivating.

He really needed to jerk off more often.

"He's a good boy, and a quiet one," Jason agreed, his eyes boring into Michael's. He got a knowing look on his face and leaned in. "But somehow I don't think that's what got you worried about him."

Michael grimaced and sighed. _No, it's that I don't want you to find him hanging in his closet one morning._

That was what the parents of his sister's friend had found. She'd kept her head down, like Devyn. She'd had cuts on her wrists, like Devyn. They said they never really understood why she'd done it. She'd been quiet and studious. She'd been a good kid. Now she was a dead kid.

"No...it's not," he agreed. "And honestly, I could be wrong. But I've seen how far it could go, if I'm right. Today I saw what looked like some cuts on his wrist."

The last four words hung in the air between them for a long minute. Jason leaned his head back against the chair and exhaled quietly, looking into the distance.

"I don't want to raise the alarm if it turns out to be nothing, it just--the signs were there and--and he seems like a good kid. I didn't want anything happening to him." Jason remained silent. Images passed through Michael's mind. His job. Devyn. Jason. Had he done the right thing, or was he making a royal ass of himself? 

_Hell, it wouldn't be the first time. Roll with it._ He could always get another job if he had to. If some kid killed himself because Michael had been too insecure to say anything...he wouldn't ever want to live with that.

"If it is what it looks like....maybe he could use some counseling. I know a lot of kids deal with this kind of shi--stuff. Hell, I'm not trying to worry you. I might have misinterpreted the whole thing." _Cringeworthy, Michael,_ his inner voice informed him. _And then some_.

Jason gave a muted smile. "Thank you, Michael," he said at last. His tone was sincere. "I admire your concern; most people wouldn't have spoken up at all. This...is actually something I'm already aware of." Michael raised his eyebrows and Jason continued, leaning his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands around the beer bottle. Michael noticed a plain silver ring on his left middle finger, but there was no sign of a wedding band.

"Devyn's mother and I were never married," he said, as if in response to the observation. "She was...she had some problems, and I was...younger. I didn't even know my boy existed until he was four." His voice sounded distant, as though it was a difficult subject. Michael leaned forward encouragingly. Jason looked up at him and sighed. 

"She was a drug addict," he explained. "She didn't want help. A few years ago, she got into trouble with her--I don't know if he was her dealer or her pimp," he said with a bitter laugh, "but she got herself killed.

"My boy was there when it happened."

Michael sucked in his breath. "God, I'm so sorry."

Jason nodded and let out a slow breath. "We've been through so much counseling. He's really improved! I hoped he was over this. I hoped having a job, getting out on his own a little, might help him." He leaned back again and shook his head, running his thumb pensively across the beads of perspiration forming on his beer bottle.

They were so close to each other and Jason seemed so open in that moment, that Michael put his hand on Jason's knee. An instant later, he realized how badly that could be misconstrued--but as he was about to pull back, he was surprised to feel Jason's hand close on top of his, gripping it as if for comfort. Again, that forbidden lust teased at him, but it was quashed by the gravity of the situation. Jason's thumb rubbed slowly back and forth across the back of his hand. Michael's neck heated up again.

"I'm sorry," he said a second time. "Is there anything I can do?"

Jason shook his head, but said, "To be honest, it's a relief to talk to someone about it other than a therapist." He glanced up, quirking one eyebrow. "Though, rumor says you're a jack of all trades. I hope counseling isn't one of them. I couldn't stand another therapy session." He chuckled wryly. 

Michael raised his eyebrows. "Ah, no," he said with a self-conscious laugh, "...a lot of things, maybe...but definitely not that." _Rumor? How much has this guy heard about me?_

The corner of Jason's lip quirked up in a sideways half-grin. 

_He's still holding my hand._

"It...must be lonely," Michael said lamely. 

Jason nodded, looking resigned. "I'm not the greatest dad, but I want my son to get better. I'm glad you came by, Michael." He gave his hand a little squeeze and finally let it go, standing up. Michael hastily stood as well, setting his untasted beer on the glass table next to the chair. "I'll call the counselor in the morning and I'll have a talk with my boy, see if he'll open up to me." His hand brushed the middle of Michael's back as he walked him to the front door. Michael fell into step with him, not trying to outpace his touch.

At the door he turned back to Jason, finding him very close behind him. Jason looked into his eyes thoughtfully and seemed to wait a moment before he said, "Michael..."

"Yeah?" Michael’s body was responding—to their closeness, to the intimacy of Jason's gaze. 

_He's straight,_ he reminded himself. _Chill out before you get your stupid ass fired_. 

He felt so unnerved; he wasn't used to being on this side of the equation. He liked assertive guys; he was on the dominant side, himself, and a battle of wills, whether verbal or physical (or naked and between the sheets) was something he took great pleasure in. Other "alpha males" didn't normally throw him so off kilter, and it was more than just the uncomfortable subject matter that was doing it. Jason had a commanding presence that seemed to brush everything else aside and demand his attention. 

_Yeah, they're called 'pheromones.' Get a grip. His kid's in fucking therapy for witnessing a murder, for god's sake._ He looked away for a second and steadied himself. Jason did that little half-grin again, but this time it seemed knowing...sensual. He leaned closer, and for a confused second Michael thought he was going to kiss him. 

"Thanks again," Jason said, and squeezed his shoulder. Then he shut the door. Michael was left on the door step, flushed--and, he realized with embarrassment, somewhat aroused. He turned and walked quickly to his car, rubbing the back of his overheated neck just to keep from clapping a hand to his forehead in chagrin.

_Smooth, Casanova_. 

At least the kid was going to get help. He hoped it wouldn't be too awkward between them when they met again at work.

~~~~~

Jason Corbin turned around as the door shut behind him, the smile dropping off his face like it had been a taped-on photograph. He walked back through the spacious sitting room, through the kitchen and down the long hallway, turning into the last door on the right. He entered the room and shut the door behind him. 

The center of the massive room contained a huge bed with black sheets and tall, elegant iron bedposts reaching almost to the ceiling. A door to the left led into a large bathroom. There was a walk-in safe in the far corner of the room, its door shut. Across from it was a small desk. His son sat on the floor beside the desk, his knees drawn up, with an open sporting goods catalog resting on them. His hands gripped the pages so tightly they had crumpled down the center, but his eyes weren't focused on the print.

Jason walked up in front of his motionless son and looked down at him. Devyn's eyes remained locked forward, staring blindly through the crinkled pages, but his breathing seemed to grow less steady. 

“Stand up.” 

Devyn obeyed, setting the half-mangled catalog on the desk beside him.

"Take off your shirt." 

Devyn obeyed, dropping it to the floor by his feet. 

As his son stood at attention, eyes forward, Jason slid his hands down the boy's arms and took hold of his wrists. He pulled them up, turning the inner wrists up to the light.

The crusted scabs, which Michael Jacobs had only noticed on the inner part of his left wrist, ran all the way around both wrists. Above them, red welts randomly slashed across his outer forearms, up his triceps, over his shoulders, and then travelling down more thickly across his chest and stomach. Beneath the raised red stripes, pink and white scars ridged the young man's pectorals and rippled across the curves of his abdominal muscles.

"Tell me what he saw. Exactly," Jason commanded the boy.

Devyn spoke evenly, his voice empty. "Sir, I think my sleeve pulled up when I took some papers from him, Sir." 

Jason moved too quickly for his boy to brace for it: he closed his hand on the back of his boy's neck a second before his fist slammed into his gut. Devyn tried to double over as the breath left him, but Jason held him upright. Devyn fought the pain and straightened again, returning to attention. Jason kept a hard grip on his neck and lowered to meet him eye to eye. Devyn met his gaze, but shut down his face, giving nothing away. No matter. Jason would be able to find him, no matter how far he hid away inside himself.

"You think? What did I just say?"

"Sir, you said, 'tell me what he saw, exactly,' Sir," Devyn stated. 

Jason's free hand cupped one side of his face, the other still pinning him by the back of his neck. He leaned in close, put his lips against the boy's ear, and growled, "So tell me, _exactly,_ what he saw."

"Sir, he saw the marks on my wrist when I took some papers from him. It was the only time it could have happened. I held my hand up like this, Sir," he demonstrated, "and my sleeve pulled back." 

Jason straightened up to loom over him once more, then pulled him in a semicircle with the hand on his neck. Devyn stumbled along until he was deposited on Jason's other side--away from the wall, closer to the bed. Jason took a couple of steps away from him and paced back and forth, pretending to be deep in thought, while Devyn stood at attention. 

"You do realize, boy, that working is a privilege, not a right?"

"Sir, yes, Sir."

"I didn't have to let you have this job, boy. Didn't have to let you start dressing up, either." He ran his gaze over the young man's brand-new designer jeans, then looked into those empty sapphire eyes for a full, silent minute. 

"Clothes are reserved for good boys, aren't they?" Jason asked in a very soft voice.

"Sir, yes, Sir." The boy controlled his expression, staring straight ahead without flinching. If Jason hadn't known him so well, he might have thought the implied threat didn't faze him.

"Hands on your head," Jason ordered. Full, defined muscles rippled in the young man's upper body as he lifted his arms and put his hands on the back of his head, facing forward in silence. Jason paced around the boy slowly until he stood behind him.

Devyn's backside was a portrait of scars. Jason traced their lines with his eyes as he let the silence stretch out. From the top of the boy's shoulders to the edge of his pants and disappearing below them, white ridges peeked out from beneath fresh, red welts. Those old, shiny, and color-bleached lines had been split repeatedly, intersected by newer scars: thick and thin, smooth and jagged, the ivory, rose, and red-violet spectrum of stripes revealed a history etched layer upon layer, year after year. On his lower left ribcage, a white four-by-eight bandage was held in place with medical tape. The middle of the bandage was soaked through with dried, brown blood. 

Jason stroked a hand up his son's back, adding pressure until he heard the boy suck in a sharp breath through his teeth. Satisfied, he stepped back and sat on the edge of the bed. He hooked a finger into Devyn's belt and pulled him backward, between his legs, facing away from him. The boy moved obediently with him. Jason massaged his son's hips for a moment, breathing against the inflamed welts on his center back, making him wait...anticipate...fear. 

***

Devyn's eyes welled up with tears now that his father couldn't see them. He swallowed hard. It wasn't fair. He wasn't used to being outside of the house, he wasn't used to wearing shirts, and he wasn't used to the new rules about what he could and couldn't show. He'd been meticulous about staying away from anyone else, about only speaking when spoken to, and never, ever had he given a hint that he wanted anything more from anyone. Mr. Jacobs kept getting in his way, and he was so distracting...he always had some kind of cologne on that was both spicy and sweet, and it made it hard to focus, standing that close together in the office.

_Quit making fucking excuses,_ he berated himself. _You didn't mind being alone with him, did you?_

"I'm giving you two weeks vacation to get your act together," his father said from behind him, making him jump. Devyn felt the man's lips press into the bandage on his ribcage. The delicious ache from that pressure made him feel even worse about what he'd done.

"Sir, yes, Sir," he responded thickly. His throat was too tight.

"Tell me," that deep voice breathed against his back, "why am I doing this?"

“Sir, because I fucked up, Sir.”

Pain erupted like a mortar blast through his midsection as a hand shoved him from behind, directly against the bandage on his back. He was kicked behind his right knee before he'd regained his balance. Devyn collapsed to his knees with a cry of pain, fighting not to grab protectively for his injured ribs, fighting to keep his hands behind his head. He held in place, kneeling with his back to his father and trying to regain control of his expression, to slow down his jagged breathing--until he heard a rustling movement behind him that sent his breath and heartrate speeding.

"That's right," came his father's voice, level and angry. "You. Fucked. Up.

"Turn around. Hands and knees on the floor."

Devyn obeyed. The calm he'd maintained thus far was leaching away from him; his heart was hammering in his ears. His face felt hot. He felt hot all the way down into his chest. He knew he'd fucked up. He always fucked up. But he really, really wanted to keep his job at the bar. It was the most trust his father had ever put in him, the most freedom and responsibility he'd ever been given, and he would do anything to keep it.

His father's shirt was off; he could see it out of the corner of his eye. He kept his head down, his eyes on his father's boots, only to find that there was a scuff on one toe. Was that from kicking him? He hoped he'd have a chance to clean it before it was noticed. Another long moment drew out: him shirtless and barefoot on his hands and knees, his breaths loud in the silence, and his father shirtless above him, watching him.

"Crawl to me," his father said. 

_Don't think,_ Devyn told himself, crawling forward. _Don't think. Don't fuck this up._

As he reached the bed, crawling in between his father's open legs, powerful fingers curled into his hair and pulled his head up and back. Those piercing gray eyes found his again and locked on him, looking into him, exposing him.

"You are going back to work in two weeks. You and I will have been to more counseling about your poor junkie whore mother's murder by her drug dealer." 

Devyn's chest felt like it was being crushed in a trash compactor. He pulled back, not physically but mentally, retreating behind a layer of forged numbness to hide his rage from the man holding him.

His father gave him a knowing look and continued, "And you are going to feel much better now that you're talking again about your pathetic little habit of cutting on your own wrists." He pulled on Devyn's hair as he spoke, just a little, moving his head back and forth. Just a little control. Just a little pain.

"Sir, thank you, Sir," Devyn responded, but his voice sounded ungrateful even to his own ears.

"You seem tense, boy," his father observed. Those gray eyes bored into Devyn's head, stealing away any safety he might have thought he could find inside himself. "Do you have a problem with what I just said?"

"Sir, no, Sir," Devyn quickly answered, but the roughness in his voice gave him away, and he cursed himself as he saw his father's gorgeous mouth draw into a cruel smirk.

"No? Funny, because you look angry." A long pause. "Are you angry with me?" 

His tone was soft and deliberate. Devyn knew he was fucked. He couldn't lie to his father. He was a terrible liar. He kept his mouth shut, knowing there would be no escape from this trap.

"You're mad because of what I said about your pretty mommy, is that it?" 

If it was a guess, it was dead on. Devyn didn't think it was a guess. Devyn was certain his father could read his thoughts. He could taste bile in his mouth, he was so angry, but more than that, he was scared. Anxiety mounted over and over itself the longer his father spoke to him, piling into a tower of fear that was blotting out everything else.

The large man traced a thumb along Devyn's jawline, watching him, still wearing that knowing smirk. Devyn loved and hated that look, depending on what his father was doing to him while he wore it. Right at that moment, he hated it with all his heart. But it fell off suddenly, leaving the man looking down at him with no expression at all, and somehow, that was worse.

"Which of us was the one who killed that bitch, son? Whose fault was it?" his father asked flatly. No anger or accusation. No emotion whatsoever. That simple string of words blasted Devyn's soul apart more powerfully than a battery of screams and curses. As soon as the vise around his ribs subsided enough to let him breathe, Devyn hitched in a tight gasp, feeling the tears spill out of his eyes. A strange growl came out of him before he cut it off. He was barely maintaining any pretense of control at this point. The whole room was swimming behind a sheen of tears.

"Maybe you want to ask yourself who you're really mad at," his father murmured. His thumb raked along Devyn's cheek, wiping the tears away.

Devyn couldn't look at him. He closed his eyes--squeezing out more tears--and nodded, clenching his teeth. He didn't know why he'd been so angry at his father. He'd just had a reaction. He was always having strange outbursts and getting emotional for no reason. If he didn't have his father around to correct him, he knew he'd never make it through life. He needed to be more grateful.

"Thank you, Sir," he managed to say.

"There's my good boy," rumbled his father's deep voice, stabbing him in the heart again with the kindness he was showing in the face of Devyn's ungratefulness. The hand on his face came up and patted his head. Devyn couldn't lower his head because of the other hand still tangled in his hair, so he was forced to struggle with the sobs that wanted out of him while he was completely exposed to his father's eyes. He felt so ashamed, he wanted to crawl under the bed. He didn't want to be this person, this weak, uncontrollable freak with so little gratitude inside him. He didn't want his father to see him like that. But the man didn't allow him to hide, and the tears wouldn't stop.

"Enough, boy. We aren't finished."

Devyn knew the tone. He clenched his teeth harder, until his temples began to pound from the tension.

"Fuck's sake, Devyn," his father muttered after a few seconds. Devyn felt like he'd been struck. His father never used his name except when he was particularly disgusted or angry with him.

"S-Sir, please help me," he begged. He watched himself whimpering, completely revolted, but his dignity was already gone; he was just desperate to stop crying before his father got more angry with him.

A massive hand clamped around Devyn's throat. His eyes flew wide; both his hands flew to his father's wrist. The hand was already so tight he couldn't get any air in or out. He started to rise to his feet, in a reflexive attempt to escape.

"Stay on your knees!" his father barked. "Don't fucking move a muscle, you pathetic little shit!"

Devyn got back on his knees. Stars were popping over his vision. His hands trembled on his father's wrist, grasping but not pulling. At least, not much. Some of it was beyond his control. His head filled with a rushing noise and his right leg bumped spastically against the floor. 

_This is what you need. This is what you deserve._ The litany helped keep his panic at bay. Before long, it didn't matter anymore. By the time survival instinct overcame his ability to control his struggles, he was only able to paw like a kitten at his father's forearm. He couldn't see a thing.

Then, suddenly, he was free. He coughed and tried to remember where he was. The blackness fuzzed away to reveal his father's gray eyes right in front of his face. He tried to aim his coughs away from his father; the hand in his hair made it difficult.

The man released him with a little push. Devyn sat back on his heels. He was still straining for air, but the tears were gone. His father leaned back against the bed and watched him. Devyn tried to gauge his expression, but it was blank. He knew he'd disappointed his father by not being able to control himself.

"It was good to finally meet your manager," the man said casually. Devyn glanced away, then up, then away. He knew he was supposed to be making eye contact, but it was hard.

"Michael Jacobs," said his father, rolling the name off his tongue. "What a nice piece of ass. You think he likes to give it or take it?"

Devyn stayed silent. Mr. Jacobs _was_ very handsome and if he said a word, he knew his father would see in him that he'd paid attention. He tried to think of other things, like mosquitoes, and the gravel in the parking lot at the club, and the folds on the corners of the bedsheets.

"Might bring that one home, some day," the man said, as though he was merely thinking out loud. "That pretty boy's wasted on his job." 

A hand came out to cup Devyn's chin again. He held very, very still as his father's thumb traced across his lower lip. 

"We ought to put that boy's pretty mouth to work, don't you think, son?" His gray eyes followed his thumb over Devyn's lip as he said it.

"Sir...if it makes you happy, Sir," Devyn stumbled over his words. He felt trapped again; an agreement would imply he'd noticed his new manager's good looks. He knew the hesitation--and the choice of words--didn't go unobserved.

"I just thought you might have an opinion," the man said with a disturbing lack of inflection. "You think he likes cock or cunt?"

Devyn hesitated. He'd been careful not to pay attention to Mr. Jacobs. He vaguely thought he'd overheard someone talking about the new manager being a fag, but he couldn't remember for sure. He told himself flatly that he _didn't_ remember. He told himself that he had no idea, before saying out loud:

"Sir, I don't know, Sir."

His father tilted his own head back and looked down his nose at Devyn. A disbelieving smirk played at the corner of his mouth. "No, you wouldn't notice something like that. It was all an accident, wasn't it?"

_What_ was an accident? Devyn kept his eyes fixated on his father's shoulder, while his stomach knotted in anxious coils.

"What were you doing alone with him?"

Devyn's hands went cold. "Sir, we were filing papers in the office."

" _Filing?_ Was he teaching you how to read?" His father let out a harsh bark of laughter.

Devyn's throat tightened; his face heated. He couldn't read, but he did know how to put the letters in order. He remembered a beautiful, soft voice singing the Letters Song to him and his sister, when they were small. He usually remembered things when he'd heard them, often down to the little details such as cadence and inflection.

Sometimes he wished he could plug his ears and not hear anything.

"So, you were _filing_ ," his father smirked. "And you reached out, 'like this.' And your sleeve pulled back."

"Sir, yes, Sir."

"Then what?"

Devyn felt tears threatening again. How had he fucked up everything so completely in one single day? "Sir, we just kept filing. I didn't know he even saw anything til after work, when he talked to me."

His father dipped his chin. His eyebrows drew together in a dangerous furrow. "He _talked_ to you?" The man leaned forward, one elbow on his knee, and the hand in Devyn's hair released it to hold him around his throat again. "When were you planning to tell me this?"

Devyn's head was pounding. He was getting angry again. He fought against the tide of emotion, stabbing that rage inward where it would only hurt him and not get him into more trouble.

"Sir, he asked me to sit down and he asked if he could do anything for me. He asked me what happened to my arm and if I wanted him to help--"

" _Help?_ " The word came out in a snarl.

"NO! That's not what he said!" Devyn cried, panicking. _Why_ had he said it that way?

An open palm crashed across his face, bashing the thoughts right out of his head and sending him sprawling. Devyn lay where he fell, his ears ringing. If his father wanted him up, he'd tell him to get up.

"Did you bare ANY part of your body for him, other than your wrist?" his father snarled.

"Sir, no, Sir." Devyn's gut twisted, thinking of the tingling lust he'd felt when he'd first met Mr. Jacobs. Panic danced down his legs, making him feel like he would piss himself.

"Did you suck his cock?"

"Sir, no, Sir."

His father's voice lowered with the next question, enough that Devyn had to listen carefully.

" _Did you_ want _to?_ "

"Sir, no, Sir," he said, with all the conviction he could muster. It was a mostly honest answer. He hadn't thought about that at work today. It had crossed his mind before, but not today. He focused on today so his father wouldn't see and pluck that thought out of his head. Anxiety churned his whole body into knots. There was another long silence.

"Get back on your knees."

Devyn scrambled to obey, and endured another wait as his father considered him. What would his punishment be? How severe? How drawn out? The waiting was the worst. Sweat greased his palms and armpits; he felt wet and even more loathsome and pathetic before his father's watchful eyes.

"Son, if I ever..." His father’s voice was soft. The man cocked his head to the side as though he was thinking about his own words.

"...If I ever hear about something like this again, you will not be going back to your job at 513. Or any other job, for that matter. I'll have to have you institutionalized. For your own safety." 

Devyn met his father's eyes, scared and confused, until the man's crooked smile reminded him that his father was telling everyone Devyn had cut his own wrists. The confusion left him. Now he was simply scared.

"Do you know where you'll be, son, while your sweet-lipped boss thinks you're in the psych ward?"

Devyn shook his head. His father's smile widened, shooting needles of cold dread through his skin.

" _You_ ," he ran his thumb over Devyn's mouth, "will be buck-ass-naked and chained up at the skin bar downtown." He slipped his thumb between Devyn's lips and pressed it in, sliding it over his tongue. The man watched his eyes as he pumped his thumb in and out of his mouth--as the tears began to roll freely down Devyn's face. Devyn could see the pleasure in his father's eyes, but he didn't know if it was pleasure that the lesson was finally reaching him, or if he was happy thinking about Devyn in the position he was describing him. Either way, he was terrified. Skin & Steel was a scary place. He'd been there just once and had stuck to his father like glue, because every eye in the place had been fixated on him like they would eat him.

"I'll keep a hood over your head. A nice, strong, leather one. Don't worry baby, I won't let them fuck up that pretty face." He bared his teeth in a joyless grin. " _But I'll let them fuck YOU._ "

He paused, his thumb stuck deep into Devyn's throat, Devyn's breaths rushing against his skin. After a long stretch of ominous silence while Devyn absorbed the threat, the man withdrew his wet thumb and wiped it back across his face, mixing the saliva with his tears. 

"Or would you like that?" he asked into the dead silence. "Do you think you'd like that, boy? A little time away from Daddy? You wanna get tied up and gang fucked til your little hole bleeds?"

" _Sir, no Sir!_ " Devyn almost yelled it. He didn't know if this was a game or not. His father wouldn't leave him at the skin bar, would he? Alone? He wouldn't leave him alone. He wouldn't do that. 

Except, he didn't believe himself. The tension, the panic, the self-loathing and shame and fear were all congealing in his chest, coiling into something huge, something that was growing bigger than him, bigger than everything.

His father smiled down at him. Reading him. Knowing.

"What about me, son? Do you want me to fuck you?"

"Sir, yes Sir!" 

Devyn meant it. 

_Please fuck me. Please be inside me and fill me up and don't leave me._ The skin bar. He'd already had nightmares about it. His father knew. He knew everything. He knew exactly how to punish him.

His father slapped him across the face again, hard enough to make him gasp, but not to knock him down. The big man leaned down and brushed Devyn's lips with his own. His father's tongue slid into his mouth, then he pulled back to suck Devyn's lower lip. While they kissed, his father kept pulling him upward, stretching him up onto his knees with his hands on his father's thighs. A big, warm hand ran down his back, around his waist, and pulled open his belt. His stomach fluttered. Everything was gearing up, and he wasn't ready. He couldn't tear his mind away from the skin bar.

_You wanted to suck Mr. Jacobs. You think he likes to give it. You want to take it. Take it from everyone._

_Whose fault was it?_

_Fuck's sake, Devyn._

"Dirty little whore," his father's deep voice rumbled into Devyn's mouth, low and pleased, causing the heat in his chest and face to intensify. Devyn rubbed a hand frantically against his own cock through his jeans, trying to make himself hard, but it wasn't happening. Visceral images, terrible imaginings mixed with real memories, flooded into his mind: strange, rough hands on his body, pain and mocking laughter, being torn and used and left alone in the dark. His shoulders jerked away from invisible, clutching hands and he heard himself sob, felt his shield crumbling. He fought the breakdown, knowing he couldn't disappoint his father any more than he'd done already, but that very fear of failure sent him into a tailspin and control flew away from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumbl me [HERE](http://subverbaldreams.tumblr.com) for more art and fics.
> 
> Some notes on how this site works:  
> \- If you “subscribe” you’ll get emails as new chapters come out. No one (not even me) can see who subscribes.  
> \- You can make “private” bookmarks, again no one can see them.  
> \- If you’re logged out of the Archive and hit “Kudos” it just says “A guest left Kudos” (and it lets me know you appreciated my work, which is nice).
> 
> **Author’s note:** Devyn and Jason have been in my head for many, many years. I wrote this 5 years ago and never seriously thought I’d get to publish it. This is scary and exciting, and I’m floored that anyone is reading it. Every time I see a new ‘kudos’ I get butterflies. I’m so happy you guys are here!


	2. Good Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tl;dr - Jason is an abusive monster, Devyn is in love with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **warning!** If graphic incest or abuse squick you out, please skip this chapter. You'll be able to pick up the thread of the storyline in the next chapter without missing a lot of plot.

Jason watched his boy's reaction with a predator’s hunger: the way his face went pale, his eyes wide. He stopped pulling the boy's pants down; instead, he lifted him off the floor and positioned him straddling his lap, just opening the front button and zipper of his pants enough to slide his hands into the back, to cradle his ass. He hugged the boy against his chest with one arm and shushed him, stroked the back of his neck as if to soothe a frightened dog. 

Smugness settled pleasantly over him. He could play his boy like an instrument. Devyn's fragile control snapped; he shuddered and fell into the comfort that was offered. His arms and legs wrapped around Jason tightly, clutching him as though to let go would mean being thrown to the wolves. Deep, raw sobs tore out of his chest. Jason kissed his ear, stroked the back of his neck with one hand and kneaded his ass with the other. He crushed the boy's smaller body in his rock-solid arms, giving him the security he needed. The boy melted into the comfort that he offered. One of Devyn's hands left his back to curl up beneath the rippling tree trunk of his upper arm; the boy's fingers slid over the granite swell of his bicep and clung to it so hard, he could have hung his whole body weight from that one gripping hand. Devyn's open mouth pressed into his chest, toward his underarm, and Jason knew he was gasping deeply, in part, to fill himself with the security of his scent. He enveloped the boy in his body, giving him his safe place. He waited for the storm to crest, and as the intensity of his son's weeping softened, Jason squeezed him and whispered into the ear he'd been kissing:

"Shhhh, hush baby boy. Daddy's got you." 

An almost inaudible moan into his chest told him that his carefully placed words had hit their mark. Jason picked up his own shirt and scrubbed it across the boy's face. Devyn submitted to the manhandling. His breath was steadying out at last. 

Jason dropped the shirt and pushed up on his son's ribs, eliciting a grunt of pain, guiding him back off his lap and onto his feet. He licked across the boy's tightly muscled, beautifully scarred belly, going to his knees as he pulled Devyn's pants down. He let the fabric fall to the floor and guided the back of each leg so his boy stepped out of them and stood before him, naked. 

He looked up into his son's eyes, gauging his reaction. Devyn swallowed several times, sucking back the last of his tears. His red-rimmed eyes were cautious. Vulnerable. 

Jason smirked, opened his lips, and pulled the boy's soft cock into his mouth. 

Devyn groaned. "Sir—ohh, thank you, Sir," he murmured, and stroked his hand through Jason's hair. The boy was well trained for this. He didn't grasp. Didn't pull. He just let his head rock back, leaned his hips forward, showed Jason what he wanted without displaying any hint of dominance.

***

Devyn released into the sensation, letting the pleasure have him. The jagged edges of his thoughts faded away. 

_ Just this. _ This was his happiness. This was his reward. Except on the occasions when his father let him have drugs, this was the only time he felt good. Other men his father gave him to liked to hurt him, cum in him. His father, though, was attentive to him, guiding him through the pain. He had taught Devyn how to enjoy pain, how to enjoy sex, when anyone else just hurt him and humped him until they squirted their load. Devyn sniffed and swiped the back of his arm across his face. The remnants of his breakdown continued to make his nose drip, but he was out of it now. He was safe. His breath came out in soft moans; he bit his lip and his hips quivered as he forced himself to hold still, to be good, not to thrust forward like his hungry body wanted him to. Even the vibration of his own groans through his throat, which was still tight from crying, felt sexual and incredible. 

Every other thought, every bit of anger and resentment he'd felt that night, all of it fell away. His father was so good to him. Too quickly, he could forget how amazingly good his father made him feel, how much the man gave to him and did for him. His head was in a cloud from his earlier sobs, and it felt like he was floating. He swiped his wrist across his nose to catch another drip and looked down, in awe at the sight of what was being done to him, stunned by his father's smoldering gray eyes looking up at him, full of knowledge and heat. The man pleasured him until he shook.

"Ohhhh....yes, Sir... _ Daddy _ ...." Devyn moaned. He was beginning to sweat, simply from the effort of holding still. His head fell back and his spine arched as the man took him to his base again, and he felt fingers prying at his entrance from behind. He sang out another gasp and stroked his father's hair. All his thoughts fragmented and escaped him as one thick finger pushed inside him, gently at first, but then shoving--and a second one, in a burst of burning discomfort--all the way in to the last knuckle. Devyn growled from the back of his throat. The dry penetration hurt...but his father's love always hurt. Knowing that he was making the man happy by doing what he wanted took the edge off any number of wounds. Another finger joined the two already in him and they hooked forward with an inward thrust, pushing against a spot inside him that shot a direct line of electricity to the tip of his cock and up into his brain, where it burst out of his mouth in a sharp gasp.

" _ Fuck! _ " 

Devyn's stroking hands clamped down around his father's head in an instinctive spasm. It was a moment of inhibited abandon, for although he resisted thrusting all the way down the man's throat, he did thrust until he hit the tight spot at the back of his father's mouth, sealing himself into that warm, wet pleasure.

His father was off him in an instant. The man surged to his feet and slapped him across the ear; he took advantage of Devyn's imbalance to grab his hair and tug him further to the side, twisting with his momentum to drag him to his knees.

"Put that filthy mouth to work, son," he snarled. "And watch your fucking hands," he added, shaking Devyn's head by the hair.

Devyn struggled to recover; his father's physical and verbal assault had cooled the heat which had built in him. He wanted to please his father; he didn't want the man to stop playing with him. Sometimes he would seem angry when he wasn't, though, and Devyn knew he was supposed to keep going no matter what happened. His father would show him what to do. It was going to hurt no matter what he did, right or wrong.

The only difference between good pain and bad pain was whether or not his father was pleased with him.

He hurried to unbuckle his father's belt. He got his pants down enough to free his half-hard cock and dove onto it before the man could force him, to show him how much he wanted it. Daddy liked him to be eager. 

But his throat was still sore from his earlier choking. He couldn't stop gagging. He wound up pulling nearly all the way off, leaving just the tip in his mouth and gasping around it. Looking up through watering eyes, he saw annoyance on the man's face a split second before it happened: those interlaced hands pulled him in and that thick meat bored into his throat. He clenched his eyes shut, swamped with discomfort and a terrifying feeling of suffocation. His throat felt like it would split open. Those powerful hands did not relent; they held him in place while his esophagus was pummeled.

Tears streamed down his face. It  _ hurt! _ It hurt, and he couldn't breathe. The breaths he did manage to snatch when his father pulled back for the next thrust were cut off when the man's hand came down and pinched his nose shut, confirming that this was punishment for forcing himself into his father's mouth. His temples began to pound and blackness crawled into his vision. His father kept using his throat, ignoring his struggles. His ears began to ring in a single, monotone hum that grew louder and louder....

He was coughing. Someone was holding him up under the armpits. He grabbed at the person's arms blindly, not knowing where he was or what was happening. The hum in his ears faded away; his thoughts coalesced enough that he became aware that there had even been a hum, and that it wasn't the normal state of things.

"You in there, son?" asked a voice. Daddy's voice.

"D...D..." Devyn coughed again. "S-" another cough, "S-Sir," he rasped. His throat burned!

"Look at me." 

Devyn squinted upward to take in his father's face. He felt awed by the sight of him. He was so gorgeous. He looked like he was surrounded by lights. Devyn blinked; more tears leaked out of his eyes. Thin mucus leaked out of his nose from his retching. Those large hands released him, and he swayed in place, but he was able to hold himself upright on his knees.

"Good boy," his Daddy told him.

_ I'm a good boy,  _ Devyn echoed to himself. His father’s praise was like gold to him, something to treasure whenever he could find it.

His mouth was filled again. He didn't have the opportunity to suck; the rod was battering down his throat again, cutting off his air. Over and over, punishing him with pain and fear, simultaneously rewarding him with intimacy and attention. His father stopped, this time, before the blackness completely covered his vision; he pulled out and let Devyn snatch a few desperate breaths before filling him again. The intermittent suffocation followed by lungfuls of sweet air began to feel really good, and that tingling filled his dick again. It went on forever before Daddy finally pulled him off, leaving him panting on his knees. 

***

Jason stalked around his boy, pulling his own pants up and idly stroking himself as he looked at the kneeling youth. 

"Sweet sixteen," he murmured, rubbing his hand over his boy's shoulders. They seemed broader than they had been a year ago; the muscles were larger and more defined. No sunken-chested weakling, his son had a strong, agile, muscular build: a younger version of himself. He had the body of a young jock, though he'd never played sports; Jason had kept him on a routine of running and weightlifting for years, now, and it was good to see his efforts pay off in the boy's sculpted body and that round, bubble ass. Though his boy didn't know it, his sixteenth birthday had been exactly one week prior; time was inexorably pushing him toward manhood. Eyes a mirror image of his own, but for the color, looked up at him, dazed and worshipful. He couldn't help but bare his teeth in an arrogant smirk.

"Got your head straight now, son?" 

"Sir," the boy coughed, wiped his face, coughed again. "Sir, yes, Sir."

"Good boy. Time for punishment."

The boy's expression never changed. "Sir, yes, Sir," he answered, and nodded his understanding. He was afraid, but his face in that moment was open, eager. The boy knew he had to be punished, but his unflagging erection told Jason that he was hoping for reward, afterward. It was adorable; Jason couldn't wipe the smirk off his face, even as he pulled his son to his feet by the hair. He kept a fist in his hair to control him and walked him around the bed, forcing him to stumble along. 

A thick black rug, with a pattern in such a dark red it barely stood out from its background, lay at the foot of the bed, providing traction for his son's bare feet and padding the wood floor. He put a hand in front of the boy's hips to keep them in place and pushed him down and forward with the hand knotted in his hair, bending him over. His boy gripped the cold metal bed railing, and sucked in deep, scraping breaths between coughs. Jason kicked his legs wide and reached between them. He stroked his boy, pulling a gasp of pleasure from him. The boy knew the deeper meaning behind the bed railing. His gratitude and trust were evidenced by the way he arched up with Jason's stroking hand. 

There were levels upon levels of punishment. A more severe punishment would require the boy to stand in the middle of the room while he was whipped, without anything to grip or to support him. More severe than that would mean being removed from Jason's personal bedroom, and would probably involve other men, diluting the intimacy of the encounter. And more than that...well, when it got messy, they would adjourn to the basement. But the boy hadn't crossed that great a line, and Jason sensed a fragility in him, tonight, that he wanted to maintain. He liked the boy's openness, the vulnerability; it was something whores tended to lose over the years, something he had carefully cultivated to keep from losing it in his son.

Jason took off his belt, considered it, then decided that, tonight, he would wrap the buckle end around his hand. He wanted the boy mobile, for later. He watched as his son's shoulder blades pulled together, watched his body tense up, as he readied his first swing.

He whipped the boy's back and legs with deliberate viciousness, first to raise welts, and then to split those welts open. He beat the teenager until sweat ran down his own chest, making his rippling abs gleam. Devyn held the bed rail in a death grip and screamed with each blow. His body jerked away from the pain, but he fought to remain in place, to please Jason. And it did, until finally Devyn's legs gave out under a heavy blow and he collapsed onto one hip, hands still glued to the bed rail above him. Blood trailed from several raised welts on his back where they crisscrossed over the thin, unhealed skin of his slightly older wounds, and fresh, bright crimson spotted the bandage on his ribs, even though Jason had avoided hitting it directly. His boy's breath scraped from his throat in half-sobs.

"Get back up," Jason ordered. His tone left no room for compromise, and his boy knew from experience that obedience truly was the only option.

Devyn pulled to his knees, leaning against the bed. One by one, he got his feet under him and lifted his back into the air once more, this time almost hugging the bedrail. Jason adjusted him so his face was further from the iron bar, then backed up and raised the belt. He paused, then reached out and slapped the boy across the back of the head. 

"Keep breathing," he commanded; Devyn had started to hold his breath, anticipating the pain, and he didn't want the boy blacking out on him before he was through with him. 

***

Devyn exhaled in a burst and began breathing again. "Sir, thank you, Sir." He hadn't done it on purpose, but it always felt good to know his father cared about him enough to remind him. Encouraged, he steeled himself.

His father backed up and raised the belt again, raining down blows as unmercifully as if he had never fallen. Devyn held himself up for only a few minutes this time before he collapsed. He lost his grip on the rail and clawed down the side of the bed as he fell.

"Get back up," came his father's voice again, almost lost behind the torrential rushing sound in his ears. Devyn's arms shook like jelly as he pushed himself up. He held himself on his knees by leaning his face on the bed, so he could reach to the bedrail above him. He leaned his upper body against the bed, pushed up with his legs, pulled on the bedrail, and managed to slither over it until he was bent over the bed and his legs were straight. That daunting task complete, he walked backward, one wobbling step after another, until he was back into position. 

The belt came down again, thundering a blast of fire across his back that sent ripples up and down his body, head to toe. His watery knees gave out and he crumpled sideways, lost his grip on the bedrail, and crashed his elbow against the lower rail of the bedframe so that his whole forearm went agonizingly numb. He couldn't get his hands under himself fast enough, and his head bounced off the rug before his fall ended, leaving his bent legs twisted up sideways under his torso.

_ No...  _

He knew he wouldn't be able to get up again. He had failed to take his father's punishment--which meant that whatever happened next would be much, much worse. 

_ Never fucking good enough _ . _ Fucking stupid whore, can't ever do it right.  _

Tears sprang up in his eyes. He turned his face downward, hiding them in the thick, black nap of the rug.

But this time, the command did not come. The big man knelt beside him, lifted him off the floor, and carried him to the bed. He was laid out gently on his side, on the soft sheets. He was afraid to believe it, at first--but belief came, as the familiar motions reassured him. His whole body was being touched. Caressed.  _ Known.  _ Belief came--and with it, something inside his chest cracked open and spilled out of his mouth in a soft sigh.

_ So good to me,  _ Devyn thought, curling toward the man's warmth. He might have mumbled it out loud. He couldn't even take his punishment for his fuck-up, and yet Daddy took such good care of him. Gratitude and shame fused into one clenching, blistering knot of turmoil inside his chest. The knot rose up into his throat and made it hard to breathe, which was making him light-headed, so he focused just on breathing until the lump receded. The room, and his father beside him, came back into focus. He was being stroked so gently, touched all over. It felt so good.

His father had the most beautiful mouth. Devyn memorized its lines for the thousandth time as the man petted him, memorized the feel of it against his tongue as Daddy leaned in to kiss him. His father's lips were strong and full, sharp and perfect, and he had a shadow of stubble around them that made him look even stronger, sexier...also a bit more stern and frightening. Devyn wished his own lips weren't so big and puffy and ugly; he wished he looked more like his father. 

_ Maybe then... _

But he didn't know how to end that thought, so it trailed off pointlessly. His backside hurt so much, but somehow the pain inside his chest was worse. It grew as the pain in his body began to subside; only his Daddy's mouth and hands were keeping it at bay. He wished he could pull his father's whole body into himself, to fill that emptiness.

_ Please... _

"You like that, son?" his father murmured to him between kisses. "You ready for Daddy?"

"Sir, yes, Sir," Devyn moaned in response.  _ Please... _

He was so hot, from head to toe. 

_ Please... _ He wanted to say it. His father wanted to hear it.

"Please, fuck me, Daddy." 

There was a greater plea wrapped up inside those four words, something Devyn didn't understand or know how to express, even to himself. What he did understand was that his father knew how to make him feel good, so good that he could forget everything, and he needed that more than he needed his next breath. He lifted a hand that felt disconnected from the rest of him to stroke over his father's sinewy forearm. The man's look of dark pleasure warmed him through and through. It blotted out everything else.

Except for that one hurt, right in the center of him. If his father dug deep enough, he would find it.

***

Jason stretched out next to his boy, petting him where he wasn't striped with welts. His boy's entire ridged backside, from shoulders to calves, was so red he looked sunburned; there were so many spots of blood beading up on him now that he appeared to have road rash. Jason kissed the tears from his boy's cheeks and licked over his soft lips, helping him along as the sharp immediacy of his pain receded into a warm afterglow. His son's eyes followed him, studying him, tracking his movement, his mood. His boy's fearful adoration never failed to please him. Again he coaxed the young man, turning his gasps of pain into moans of pleasure, until the youth was keening quietly, pleading without words. 

"You like that, son?" Jason teased. "You ready for Daddy?"

"Sir, yes, Sir," his boy murmured. Then, those magic words: 

"Please fuck me, Daddy." 

Jason turned so that his feet were by the boy's head and let the boy unlace his boots. Devyn's hands were clumsy and uncoordinated, but his face went soft with pleasure at the gift. He stroked his hands over the leather with reverence as he loosened the laces. Once he was finished, Devyn tilted his head toward the boot nearest his face and looked a question up at Jason. He nodded his permission, and Devyn leaned in to kiss the black leather, his tongue flicking out to stroke across it. Jason let his boy enjoy it for a moment before he lifted his foot and pressed the sole of the boot against Devyn's cheek, pushing his head down into the mattress. He smirked as he heard the boy moan; he saw one of Devyn's hands sneak downward to stroke himself. Jason held him there while he pulled off his other boot, then released the boy so he could peel away the rest of his clothing. Once he was undressed, he rolled the boy onto his back and slapped his inner thighs to get him to spread his legs wide.

Jason watched his boy's face and body intently as he mounted him, watched his boy lose himself in the pleasure Jason ignited inside him. He kissed his son passionately as he breached him, until the boy's initial cries of pain morphed into sounds of drugged bliss. Jason encouraged and stroked, kissed and licked, until Devyn was humping his hips with abandon to meet Jason's thrusts, crying out in loud, needy moans. Jason kissed him again and again, swallowing his cries.

Any idiot could torture or rape someone; it took skill to make them hungry for it, to make them  _ crave _ it...and he'd spent years training his sweet baby boy to need _ him _ \--for everything. No jock bartender would be able to change that. A sneering grin split his face as he remembered his words to the boy's manager earlier that night. 

_ Yeah, I'll get him to 'open up' to me. All the way. And I will  _ make _ him LOVE it.  _

Jason looked down at his son's half-lidded eyes, and reveled in the moment. He put a hand around the boy's throat and slammed his hips forward in heavy thrusts, forcing the breath from the youth in strangled screams as he rode him into the bed. He made it hurt until his boy fought back, pushing at his hips, trying to get him to back off. His son knew better than to use his fingernails, but he was allowed to push back when it hurt; Jason loved making him squirm and could easily overpower him.

"Feels good, doesn't it, son?" Jason growled in a low voice, pulling his boy's hair and strangling him at the same time. "You need this, don't you, baby boy?" His boy nodded and let out a sob. 

"Dad--dy--good--yuh--AHH!" Devyn cried incoherently. His hard cock slapped against his own stomach with Jason's thrusts.

"What a good boy," Jason murmured and leaned in to bite the boy's throat, making him groan. Jason flipped his boy over in a quick, violent motion and plunged back into him, pushing a delicious scream out of him, making him buck and try to pull away. He grabbed the back of the boy's neck and shoved his head and shoulders down, forcing him further open. 

***

Devyn shrieked into the mattress. The new angle made it feel like he was being stabbed on every thrust. He thrashed as hard as he could against his father's grip, unable to speak, reaching backward to scrabble at the hands that were holding him down. 

_ Stop, stop, hurts, hurts, HURTS!  _ But he couldn't form the words; his tongue remained frozen in his mouth and only screams came out of him. Despite the ice water cascading through his veins, something inside him truly didn't want it to stop--and maybe that was why the words wouldn't come. He couldn't bear to have his father leave him now, to leave him sweating and hurting and  _ needing.  _ He had to trust that his father would stop when it was too much--or maybe never stop at all. He didn't know what he wanted. He didn't know anything. He was crying. It felt so horrible. It felt so amazing.

In the midst of that cloud of agony, his father was speaking to him. The man's voice found him, soothed him, reassured him that he was doing it right, he was making him feel good. Daddy held him down and promised him that he was being a good boy. He kept fighting, not knowing if he really wanted to get away or not, but his father didn't allow him to break free. He was secure in his captivity.

_ Good boy. Daddy's sweet little whore. Doing such a good job. _

The words became Devyn's whole world. He clung to them while everything else was being obliterated.

_ Daddy's good boy.  _ That was the only thing that mattered.

Something inside him began to overflow. At first it felt like pleasure, but it became too much. It shook his whole body in an overwhelming wave, filled every part of him to bursting. Devyn experienced a moment of true fear--but when the initial intensity subsided all of his pain was gone, no longer even a memory. His whole body felt like it was hovering a foot above the bed.

As his hands relaxed their grip and slid back onto the covers, his father's voice faded back into heavy breathing; he could hear his own muffled grunts into the bedsheets, hear the slap of skin on skin, feel the comforting weight of his father's grip, keeping him possessed, owned, safe. Though he was still conscious and aware of what was happening, everything went smudgy around him, blurring beautifully into gasps and pressure and flowing warmth.

He'd made it. He was on the apex. Nothing was better than this. 

They rocked together in that sweet nirvana and Devyn disappeared for a while, letting the tide carry him away. The pressure at the base of his spine intensified almost without his awareness, but like a dream would awaken him from deep sleep to use the restroom, an ingrained obedience forced him back to the surface of himself to gasp out: _ "Cuhh...ple-e-ah....cum? Ple-ease!!" _

"You don't fucking deserve it, little  _ whore!"  _ His father’s voice was savage, revealing him to be close to the edge as well. He leaned down and his hot breath spilled into Devyn's ear in a harsh growl: "But I'm gonna give it to you anyway; that's how good your Daddy is to you. You ready?"

Devyn nodded and whimpered, hoping desperately that his father wouldn't change his mind.

"Cum for me, son," the man commanded him. A big, hot hand reached around him; the moment it touched his sensitive shaft, it set him off.

_ Son.  _ The word exploded inside him with the orgasm, searing and precious. Heat surged through his groin and rushed like liquid fire through his entire being. His whole body broke out in goosebumps and his eyes rolled back. His breath spilled out of him in ragged cries he was barely aware of. Before his climax ended, his father joined him in that release. He heard that deep voice groan and call him a good boy, knew the man was pleased with him, and in that beautiful moment, he became whole.

Once his father was through with him, he didn't kick him off the bed. He wrapped an arm around Devyn's shuddering waist and pulled them both onto their sides, spooning him, still inside him. Devyn kept his eyes closed as he gasped for breath. They were both drenched in sweat, and their bodies stuck together. He didn't want it to ever, ever end; he clung to that sense of completion with every particle of his being.

_ Daddy's good boy.  _

He basked in the glow of that thought. He drew it around himself like a blanket, forming a barrier against any other thought that tried to assert itself. His lashed backside burned down to the bone, his muscles and joints all hurt, he felt ill and nauseous and his chest  _ still _ ached--but that was all far, far away, on the other side of the wonderful rolling waves that kept crashing over him.

***

Jason cradled his son as their breathing returned to normal. It had been a long, long day; he'd been working since three a.m. He thought of sending the boy to his place on the floor, but just at this moment it felt so good just to hold his warm body, to smell his sweat and cum, fear and blood. Besides, he liked to give the boy little rewards when he performed well. It kept him confused, eager and manageable. He licked his boy's shoulderblade, found an open wound and ran his tongue along it, making him moan softly. He whispered in his ear, "You'll sleep with me tonight. I want your sweet ass right here, keeping me warm. Does that make you happy?"

"Sir, yes Sir." Devyn whispered. "Thank you, Sir."

"Good boy," Jason murmured. 

He buried his nose in his son's hair, enjoying his scent. His son held onto his muscle-corded forearms as they wrapped around him, and cuddled back against his chest. His boy's backside was fever hot from the lashing; it felt decadent against his skin, like a living heat wrap.

They held one another and drifted into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please drop me a line here or on [tumblr](http://subverbaldreams.tumblr.com/fics), [newtumbl](http://subverbaldreams.newtumbl.com/), [or twitter](http://twitter.com/SubverbalD). I would love to hear from you!


	3. Illustration - Jason and Devyn (NSFW-ish)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason has a talk with his son. (Image shows Devyn kneeling in his underwear, Jason fully clothed.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I didn't put the bandage on there, and Devyn's pants disappeared. Imaginationland is whatever the fuck you want it to be. I'm the author so it's still canon. (Shh; it is.)


	4. Collared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Michael and Jason spend quality time together

Two weeks went by. Devyn cleaned the house like a good boy, worked out according to his father's schedule, and sucked off his father's clients when he was told to. He was looking forward to going back to work at the club. He liked being out, around other people. He was afraid to speak with anyone; he wasn't allowed to converse with strangers and he didn't dare disobey, as he couldn't ever be sure who reported to his father...

...Or who might get hurt because they had decided to speak to him. 

_Blond hair like spun silk. Her eyes were old, but she was barely older than him. And she smiled at him like she'd known him before--_

_DON'T REMEMBER_

Devyn went still. He had that feeling he sometimes got, like everything had just shifted around him. Whatever it was, it was gone now, leaving no trace but a queasy smear at the far edge of his thoughts. He glanced around the room, but it was just him and a pile of freshly cleaned bed sheets. He lowered his head and resumed making the bed.

It didn't matter that he couldn't talk to people. Just to hear the conversations around him, to overhear pieces of people's lives that seemed so alien and so familiar to him all at once...to put something together well or take it apart quickly, be part of a team doing something...even if he had to work on the fringes of the group...he would do whatever it took to get back out to 513. Even his sister, who was glad to have him back home for the time, looked forward with him to his next venture out to the club. Every day he'd worked there, he had brought her stories of things he'd seen and done. He felt a sense of adventure--safe within his father's rules, but still well outside his norm--and she lived each moment with him as he spoke it to her; he saw his happiness reflected in her eyes and took it for her own joy. There was something out there, he _felt_ it: in the wire-crossed walkspace behind the silent stage, in the crowded office with the buzzing fan, in the gravel-strewn parking lot where workers smoked and bands laid out their instruments. A promise...a hope. He was growing taller, stronger...maybe becoming something more than he'd ever been before. 

Maybe becoming more like a man in his father's eyes.

Two weeks of good behavior and his father was, as always, true to his word. Devyn returned to the club at noon, and worked until a few hours before the doors opened. He had cut thumb holes in all his shirt sleeves in case he needed to cover himself, but by the time he went back, his forearms were wound-free. He felt an unfamiliar smile on his face as he lugged wire from one end of the parking lot into the club. The sun was warm on his skin and the air was filled with the noise of traffic and people's voices. He would do this all day, every day if he could. His father told him to say it was a summer job, but he didn't go to school; maybe if he kept being good his father would let him work here full time someday soon. He wasn't sure at what age kids were supposed to be out of school, but he had to be close.

~~~~

Michael felt something ease in his shoulders when he saw Devyn at the club that evening. Devyn didn't say anything to him other than a brief hello, but he didn't seem distraught. He watched the youth surreptitiously throughout the evening. Though he was his usual silent self, for all he could see the boy was doing well. 

Jason hadn't tried to contact him, but a week prior, Michael had received a thank-you card simply signed, "J." 

_So, maybe the counseling did the boy good. I've never seen him smile like that._

A weight he hadn't even realized was there seemed to lift from his chest. Feeling good, he went about his work. 

It was a couple days later, just as they were wrapping up after closing, when his cell phone rang from a blocked number. He picked up. 

"Hello?"

"Michael," the deep voice greeted him.

"Mr...Jason," he corrected himself. "It's great to hear from you." It was back again instantly--that queasy, fluttering feeling. Jason was truly the only person Michael could remember feeling this awkward around since his first crush in middle school...and all he'd done was say Michael's name over the phone.

"I apologize that it's taken me this long to get back to you. I haven't forgotten about what you did for me. How would you like to come by for a few drinks?"

Flummoxed, Michael stuttered, "I, yeah, I..."

"Just swing by when you've wrapped up." The phone clicked. Michael stared at it. _Well, this is surreal,_ he thought. Then he remembered that devilish grin and found a matching one forming on his face.

_~~~~~~_

Jason poured another shot for his “date,” then downed one himself. He leaned back, rubbed the back of his hand thoughtfully against his chin, and assessed the man sitting across from him, while he told a drastically modified version of a run-in he'd had with a cocaine peddler at Skin & Steel a few years prior. It had been hilarious, watching the man try to run when he saw Jason come in: he had hopped onto the slick, wet bar top and slipped in place like a cartoon character when he tried to dash across it, sending up a spray that dampened the nearby patrons. After a clumsy scramble the length of the bar, he had slithered through the crowd and attempted to reach the second floor by climbing a human suspension rig. He had fallen and wound up dangling from the setup by one ankle, much to the applause and amusement of the audience. Jason wrapped up the story by recounting how the dastardly miscreant had spilled his guts to the police out of sheer humiliation. 

In his edited tale, he cut out the fact that the dealer worked for him. And that he had, in fact, spilled his guts. All over Jason's boots, courtesy of a knife to the stomach. Devyn had spent two days getting the blood out of the leather.

Jason had gathered some information on Michael Jacobs over the last couple of weeks. Thirty-five years old, high school education, no college. Parents divorced, both dead. Two half-siblings, both more than a decade younger and he hadn't visited them in years. He'd bounced from state to state over the last few years and didn't appear to have any close ties. There was one arrest a decade ago for a bar fight, but there had been no charges. 

He was Jason's height to the inch and he had broad shoulders; clearly he lifted weights, though he was smaller overall and probably twenty pounds lighter--which suited Jason's preference just fine. His thick, wavy, dark brown hair was styled long so that it fell to his shoulders and framed his strong-jawed, clean-shaven face. His lips were full and pretty. His eyebrows were expressive, alternately quirking and flattening as he spoke, frowned, and laughed.

His hazel eyes displayed two key weaknesses: kindness and openness. He had never been truly broken. He was fresh as a virgin in that regard, though he seemed to think himself worldly. 

His eyelids were naturally shaded; that, along with those tricolored blue, green, and honey-brown eyes, with those pretty lips and that sculpted jaw, gave him the striking appearance that a Calvin Klein model would kill for--a face Jason's clients would pay top dollar for. If he decided to go that route. There were a number of options.

 _Here, little fish,_ he thought smugly.

~~~~

Michael was four beers and two shots into the early morning hours, and he was beginning to feel that it was less a visit with his club's owner and far more like...well, like a date. He was comfortably sprawled in that same, soft leather chair he'd been sitting on the edge of, the first time he'd been here. His host had a devilish sense of humor and a wicked insight into human nature which was well laced with ironic wit; he had Michael laughing to the point of tears with some of his crazy stories, and Michael was having just about the best night of his life. His knee was resting against Jason's, a fact that had not escaped him. _I'm flirting with the richest, hottest man in the city, and I'm pretty damn sure he's flirting back! Look at me now, Ma,_ he thought, and smirked at himself. He had a bit of a buzz going; it was just right. 

He was gathering his thoughts to tell another story of his own, when he saw Jason's expression change. He went still, suddenly feeling out of his element. His heart sped up as the club owner leaned forward, smiling a little, and held out the shot glass to him. He knocked it back, coughed, and set it back down. As he did, Jason's hand covered his. Jason leaned forward, brushed his hair back--

\--and oh, god, they were kissing and it was fucking incredible. Heat surged through his groin and they each pulled the other closer, until Jason was half-kneeling over him and he had his hands on Jason's ass, and how fucking lucky was he to have this stud practically in his lap right now? Only the fact of their relative positions in employment kept him from tearing Jason's clothes off like tissue paper. Some guys didn't like it as rough as Michael did...though he had the sense that Jason might be game for just about anything. He grinned, delighted at this turn of events. He'd had a feeling, but it had gotten all muddled because of Devyn...

 _Oh, shit._ He cursed reality for making such an unwelcome entrance into his thoughts, but it was too late. He gathered himself enough to pull back and speak.

"Hey...the kid's not--" _home, is he?_ Michael was going to ask, but Jason's tongue swept back into his mouth; his teeth, his lips, his tongue all moved expertly, and when he pulled back Michael could only groan, breathless. Jason moved down to his neck. His bites sent electric shivers down his body. Michael debated trying to press the question as he ran his hands along Jason's shoulders, down his muscular arms and back, feeling him hungrily through the fabric. God...Jason was every inch the man he wanted. Something primal was pulsing at the back of Michael's brain and he was already choreographing how he would take Jason to the ground and pin him so he could ream that muscular ass, when Jason's voice rumbled in his ear.

"Let's go to the bedroom."

 _Fuck, yes. Forget about the kid. Jason knows him better than anyone_ . _He wouldn't do this, here and now, if he thought it would be a problem._

The nagging discomfort was still there--that memory of Devyn hunched in a chair in his office--but Michael turned away from it, determined not to let it ruin this night. 

_Jason's a grown man._ _He's not married. So what if he swings? Devyn's an adult; he can handle it._

His unease faded to a background hum--still present, but not nearly enough to pull away from the hot mouth he was locked into. Michael rose with Jason and walked down the hall with him. Rather, he stumbled down it, as they were still tied together by tongue and throat, and neither paying too much attention to minor nuisances such as walls and furniture. Jason guided him into the second-to-last door on the right. The room was large and open, almost strangely sparse, but Michael only cared about the king sized, sleigh-framed bed in the corner, with dark red sheets like blood spilling over its sides. Jason swung Michael around to face him and walked him backward, tongue in his throat. He pushed him back on the bed. Michael immediately began flicking open the buttons of his own blue shirt, wondering as he did if the man really thought he was going to bottom for him. He suspected Jason would want him to; he didn't seem like the 'fuck me' type. 

_Yeah, definitely more of the "I'm going to fuck_ you" _type,_ he decided, looking up into those predatory gray eyes, and he grinned. His blood was pumping, he was at the top of his game, and he was most definitely up for a fight.

Their shirts hit the floor together and Jason was on top of him; he pushed Michael into the mattress and ground him through their clothing. Michael pulled the man down to him and twisted them around so he was on top. He bit Jason's throat until he earned a grunt of pain, and wedged a leg between Jason's thighs. Jason's hand locked over the back of his neck--hard, bruising. Michael levered the man's arm until his hand came free and then smacked him on his cheek, palm open. He’d been holding back, but this was a telling point; now they would see where they stood with each other.

Jason growled and surged up against him. He shoved Michael off the bed and yanked him to his knees while he was still trying to find the floor. He stroked Michael's face and lips with hungry hands, looking down at him with his kiss-reddened lips parted. Far from looking annoyed by the slap, he had a ravenous fire in his eyes and a thick bulge in his pants. His white teeth bared in a savage grin, showing sharp canines that made him look feral.

"Feisty little slut, aren't you?" he sneered. 

Michael flushed. Aggressive lust and a touch of anger had his heart thumping through his whole body. He returned the grin and surged forward. He shoved Jason backward so he was half-sitting against the bed, caught both his wrists as Jason reached up to grab him, and twisted them away. Jason cussed him and leaned in to bite his jaw. Michael pushed him backward until he leaned back on his elbows. Jason's expression found a meeting point between amusement, arrogance, and carnality, but he finally submitted and let himself be handled. 

Michael ran his free hand with naked desire over the man's perfect, rock-hard abs. He pressed his face into Jason's belly, licked and bit the thick ridges of muscle. They were both breathing heavily, and he could feel Jason's pulse against his lips. Jason's chest was mostly hairless, but a dark line started at his navel and widened down his belly. Michael followed that enticing trail to the edge of his jeans and whipped the belt open. Jason backed off as Michael yanked his pants down, allowing his hands to roam freely. He stroked his fingers through Michael's hair at first, but strokes turned to grabs, and then to pulls.

The bulge Michael had glimpsed that evening did not disappoint; Jason was uncut and enormous. Accustomed to (and rather proud of) being the biggest kid on the block himself, it was the first time he'd been with someone who seemed to be just like him: big. Aggressive. Dominant. He looked up into Jason's heated eyes, and a wicked smile spread across his face. 

"Nice package, son," he growled, and tugged on that thick shaft. "Maybe I'll even let you get off later--if you make it worth my while." He got about the reaction he'd expected. Jason looked half pissed, half pleased, like he might punch him or kiss him. Maybe both at once. Submissive men were great, and as a general rule Michael preferred them, but sometimes he needed to get his aggression out on someone who would fight back _and_ enjoy it. This was beyond perfect.

Jason bared his teeth in that wolfish grin and gripped his chin. "You've got a dirty mouth, boy. I'm gonna have to wash it out." 

He punctuated his meaning by grabbing Michael's head and shoving his cock up into his eager mouth.

***

Their lovemaking was so fierce it was almost a wrestling match, as each man battled for supremacy. Jason was careful not to push it too far. His new pet liked it rough, which was perfect, but he didn't want to scare away the cute little fish before his hook was set. He let Michael hold him down to fuck his mouth and he sucked him hard, bringing him to a spine-arching orgasm. As soon as Michael came, Jason threw him down onto the mattress and pinned his wrists above his head. He choked the man on his cock while he was still reeling, until his own cum exploded all over the pretty whore's flushed face. It was intriguing to him, the way his new pet kept trying to maneuver himself into dominance. The last two men he'd broken in had been on the submissive side already; it had been a while since he'd broken another top. 

It was a game he was going to enjoy.

Jason kissed and fondled him for awhile as they relaxed in the afterglow, and insisted on helping him clean up. He stood behind Michael in the bathroom, holding him facing the mirror. He watched Michael's eyes, intuiting his reaction as he meticulously wiped his cum-lathered face with a damp washcloth. The man didn't take well to being handled like a child, but Jason soothed his ruffled feathers by kissing and biting the back of his neck, by twisting his already sore nipples and grinding against him from behind, by telling him how sexy he looked, all covered in cum. His affections broke through the man's resistance and his new toy allowed him to wipe him clean and to pat him dry with a fresh towel. There was rebellion in this one, to be sure, but also a loneliness Jason could easily harness. Jason fed the man another beer and lazed with him on the bed awhile before wishing him a good night/good morning and sending him on his way. He leaned against the door frame to watch his new boy drive away, a faint smile curving his lips.

~~~~~~

Michael came by the estate every time Jason called. He was eager to continue the affair. The man was handsome, mysterious, rich. He often had a little smile at the corner of his mouth like he was enjoying something private. When he looked at Michael with that smile, it sent shivers down his spine. Devyn was a ghost around the house; Michael never saw him. Jason regaled him with the occasional story about the youth's summer activities, his friends (apparently, he had several close ones, but he was self-conscious about his father's wealth; Jason said his son preferred to go out with them rather than risk embarrassing them with the affluence of his father's estate), and his excellent progress in therapy. Occasionally Michael would see other people around the place, but they always appeared to be there for business. He didn't care; he was there for other business. It made him feel special in a way he never really had; not to a lover, in any case, and Jason's opinion of him became more and more important as time passed.

The affair was like nothing he had ever experienced. The older man was always in control of himself--and increasingly in control of Michael. Disconcerting as that was to him, he found that the payoff for relinquishing control in the bedroom was to be brought to states of orgasm he had never experienced; Jason seemed always to know exactly where to touch: when to be rough, when to be gentle, and how to push him just a tiny bit further than he was comfortable going, every time stopping a moment before he would have pushed back. Michael found himself opening up, inch by inch, to foreign, frightening, but utterly arousing states of submission in Jason's capable hands. Michael had whipped kinky boys plenty of times, played with rope bondage and blindfolds, but creating a "scene" with props had never been his biggest focus. For Jason, it seemed to be a way of life. And he was good at it. Goddamn, he was good. Jason was one hell of a top and Michael was surprised at how much he was able to enjoy playing bottom for him...although the presumption that he would _always_ bottom definitely irked him, and he held his ground that he would spend some time in charge. 

But there was a problem. Whenever he did switch back to the dominant role, he increasingly had the uncomfortable feeling that his technique wasn't up to par. Jason was good about it; he tried to play along, but Michael could see in his eyes that he was only doing it to make him happy, which started to make him feel like a creep for forcing the issue.

It was a strange dynamic. He never quite felt that he knew where Jason was coming from. The only time he really felt like he was doing everything right was when Jason had him subbing. Whenever they were in that space, with the clear direction, the genuine positive feedback, and the heady mixture of pain and pleasure, he was learning more and more how to release his thoughts and just not worry about anything--not his pride, how he looked, how anyone but Jason felt about him--and as long as he let go of the reins, it seemed he could do no wrong in Jason's eyes. The rest of the time, it felt as if he was stumbling through their relationship and only Jason's classy attitude and tolerant humor were making it work. 

He really had been alone for a long time, he was realizing, without any close relationships in his life. Just fuck buddies, and none of them skilled by comparison to his new lover. That solitude hadn't bothered him much before, but it did now. Had he lost his people skills? Or had he just never been around someone who really challenged him to be his best? In some ways, he felt like Jason was everything he _could_ have been. Michael was fit, but Jason was _perfectly_ fit. Michael did alright for himself, but Jason was rich and successful. Michael was confident, but not in Jason's league: the man seemed to just naturally take control of everyone he came into contact with. 

He found himself changing as the weeks went by. At work, he felt a distance from the rest of the crew. Any hint of hesitance from them when he gave instructions had him second-guessing himself. Had his tone been weak? Had his order been reasonable? Or was he just trying to fake that he was good at being in charge?

The gym was still a place where he felt at home. He doubled down on the weight lifting which supplemented his martial arts routine, knowing full well that he was trying to compete with Jason's body. He was pleased with the progress he made. He was good at Kajukenbo, anyway--something Jason had never tried and wasn't into--and he must have been a decent manager, or Jason wouldn't have kept him on. He just hadn't been trying hard enough. 

Maybe he hadn't been trying hard enough for his entire life.

~~~

That night, as he and Jason laughed and flirted over drinks, there was a sharp triple-rap at the front door. Michael raised his eyebrows; the other man rolled his eyes and excused himself. Michael stood up and stretched after Jason left, walking to the hallway. He strolled down the hall, trailing his fingers along the wall and the doors he passed by. Room one on the right and room two on the left, he'd been in. Room three on the left...his fingers ran curiously over the door handle, but he kept on walking. His steps clicked on the wood floor down to the end of the hall. At the last door on the right, he saw a light under the door and heard a muffled whimper. He tilted his head to the side, listening. Did Jason have a dog? 

_Surely, that doesn't fall within the definition of “prying,”_ he reassured himself with an inward smile. 

He pushed the door open.

The massive room opened to him. He saw the corner of a humongous bed. It had black sheets and ceiling high bedposts. His eyebrows drew together as he took it in. They'd had sex on the floor, across the leather chairs in the white room, and in some fascinating positions in one of the rooms down the hallway, which was well equipped for Jason's style of fun. It was amazing what the man could do with twenty-five feet of rope and some ceiling hooks. Michael wasn't completely naïve; he didn't expect promises of undying devotion or monogamy from a man like Jason, but it struck him uncomfortably to know there was a master bedroom of this size which he hadn't even known about. He pushed the door open further.

And he felt the floor shift underneath him, as cold washed over his entire body. 

_Well, this is fucked,_ said a detached voice in his head.

At the foot and nearest corner of the bed was a naked male form. His body was rippled with muscle, from his pumping biceps to his sharply defined abs. His eyes were covered with a black leather blindfold, and a wide strip of leather covered his entire mouth. His wrists were tied above his head with slender red rope, partway up the tall bedpost, just high enough to pull him off the floor so he couldn't sit down. He flexed his hands and twisted his wrists inside the bonds as he knelt, knees apart. There were red leather cuffs around his ankles, with silver loops attached to a large chain which wound around the bottom of the bedpost so he couldn't stretch out his legs. His uncut cock hung down between his thighs. He looked like a perverted wet dream, chained and beautiful and helpless. His chest, legs, and arms had some kind of rose-and-wine-colored tattoo that covered every inch. Overlaying the strange pattern on his chest were four long, angry red welts. 

There was dried blood on them. 

He whimpered again, then said something unintelligible and pleading. It sounded like there was a gag inside his mouth, too.

But the part that really shut down Michael's brain was the hair. 

It was straight, thick, and black, and it fell just to his chin.

Michael backed up, pulling the door shut as he did. A thick veil enveloped him as he turned and walked back to the front room. The hallway, so solid around him only a moment ago, now rolled around him and bucked under his legs as though he was on a ship at sea. His heart was pounding so hard in his chest and ears that it was all he could hear. 

The white room was still empty. Michael fell back on the leather chair. With a numb hand, he picked up the bottle of vodka they had been sharing throughout the evening. He knocked aside the shot glass and filled a tall water glass from the bottle, then gulped the whole thing down without tasting it. His brain tore off in several directions at once. 

The first voice tried to rationalize. There was no possible way he had just seen Jason's son tied up in that room. It had to be someone else--and yes, it was over between them; that was definitely too "experimental" for his taste, but there was no way that was Jason's son.

Another part of him felt that he ought to run back to the room, untie the poor bastard, and help him get out of the house, but he had a strong intuition that, whatever was going on, that was not a smart idea. It was a long hallway. Jason was in the front, by the door. And maybe the person-- _who IS NOT Jason's son,_ he thought with a hollow desperation--really _wanted_ to be there. He'd done some things himself that would have looked insane to an outsider.

_But there was blood._

His hands shook as he refilled the glass. _Get a goddamn grip._

_I have to get out of here._

Jason returned to the room just after he finished the second cup. Michael shot to his feet. The room spun around him and he staggered, his gorge rising. 

"Woah there," Jason laughed. He took Michael's arm and led him through the front door into the cool night air. Michael leaned against the wall, shrinking away from Jason, and tried not to vomit. He felt a huge hand rubbing his back, which was still bruised from two nights ago. What the fuck had he been doing? What in the fuck had he gotten into? 

_Get the fuck out of here!_

"I need to go home," he muttered. 

_Give the devil an inch, and soon he'll be a ruler._ His zealot uncle's words kept circling through his head. 

_Give him an inch._

But his uncle had been crazy. A religious nutjob, funneling money through his grassroots church until the feds caught him. 

And a pervert. Uncle Will had raped Michael when he was thirteen. Just once. He never told anyone, but he'd made sure his younger brother and sister were never alone with him, and Uncle Will later went to prison on a federal fraud conviction. Michael had been eighteen when their parents died. He had taken custody of his younger sister and brother. 

He'd been a father to them.

 _A father. A ruler._ He thought of Jason's near twelve inch cock and coughed to keep from laughing. _Is this what going crazy feels like?_ Jason was staring at him.

"Drank too much," he explained. He couldn't remember if he'd said that already.

"No shit, boy. You want to lie down?" 

Michael shook his head. _Boy. Since when did I ever let someone call me that? Since when did I let it replace my name? What the fuck is wrong with me?_

_Give the devil an inch...a niche...a ninch..._

His head was swimming. He took a shallow breath.

_Don't puke._

"Alright, I'm calling you a cab, then. You're wasted."

Michael nodded and waved him off. He stayed propped against the wall, sucking in the crisp air and concentrating on not being sick.

It seemed like eternity before the cab showed up. Jason helped him get to the car door and held his arm as he got in. Michael felt the other man's eyes on him, even after the door shut. 

He gripped the seat the whole ride home, staggered into his house, then stumbled to the bathroom and vomited violently. He sat on the floor with his back to the sink, held his legs to his chest, and put his head on his arms. 

He stayed there all night. 

The next day, he walked out front to find his car in the carport with the keys in an envelope on the seat...and a note. 

"Feel better. See you soon. - J - "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yell at me here or on [tumblr](http://subverbaldreams.tumblr.com/fics), [newtumbl](http://subverbaldreams.newtumbl.com/), [or twitter](http://twitter.com/SubverbalD). 
> 
> kudos = dopamine  
> comment = brainsplosion


	5. Commissioned art: Devyn and Jason (Safe for Work)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Devyn and Jason Corbin, art commissioned from **[zayacv](http://zayacv.tumblr.com/)**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might need to post today's scheduled chapter tomorrow; I am working on the last essay of this semester, and the deadline is breathing down my neck. ‘:[ Sorry!!!!
> 
> While you wait, please enjoy this INCREDIBLE artwork! The artist captured both characters so perfectly, I was floored when I first saw this. Devyn’s subtle, lost expression, Jason’s casual possessiveness, and of course the scarrssssssss! I’m thrilled with the result and just wish I had done this sooner.


	6. Truth is Deadlier than Fiction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael takes action.

Michael shuffled into Club 513 with sunglasses on and a stomach full of hangover remedy. A reverberating drumbeat pounded nonstop through his head. He went straight to his office and slumped in the swivel chair, rubbing his forehead. He heard it, when someone came in the door, but looking up just seemed like a lot of effort.

"Hi, Mr. Jacobs." 

Michael froze. It was Devyn. The door swung shut with a fatal click as Devyn walked past him to open the filing cabinet. 

Michael swallowed hard—it was loud, too loud in the silent room—and swiveled to face the kid’s back.

"Dev..." 

He stopped. His voice sounded thick. Distorted. Devyn stilled at the sound and turned his head to the side, tilting his hair over his face.

"Sir?"

Michael stood up and stepped within arm's reach of the boy. His voice came out, but it didn't feel like he was speaking the words. "You know I've been seeing your father, right?"

Devyn shifted away from him, backing up against the cabinet. Michael could just see his face where his hair parted. His eyes were lowered, turned toward the desk behind Michael. 

"Yes sir, I know." 

There were two bruises just under Devyn’s chin. Michael wouldn't have noticed them normally, but they seemed huge to him at that moment. Were they finger-shaped? 

He thought of how rough Jason was with him when they had sex. He always went home with bruises--sometimes even welts. But that was different; he was older, it was his choice, and he gave as good as he got. 

Or at least, he used to. 

But the thought of someone doing that to a--to a _child_ , eighteen or not... 

_To his own son. Which means it's probably been going on for years._

His eyes moved down the boy's clothed chest. His heart was pounding, beating through his eardrums. 

Devyn swallowed hard, watching Michael's eyes roam over him. "Mr. Jacobs?" he asked. His voice wavered.

Michael reached out to touch Devyn's shirt. The boy flinched violently. His back slammed against the cabinet behind him, causing a stack of papers to slide off of it and scatter on the floor.

 _That's the last fucking straw._ The kid was terrified of him. He was bigger, stronger, but that wasn't the reason, or not entirely. Someone was hurting him. 

_Not “someone…”_

Michael's teeth clenched. A cataclysmic rage began pounding through his chest, in time to the drumbeat of blood in his ears. 

He stepped forward before Devyn could sidle away from the cabinets. He took the boy’s chin, pushed his hair back. There were dark circles under Devyn’s eyes. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. A flush had crept up his neck and darkened his cheeks. His eyes were too wide, but still he didn't look up. Michael could feel him shaking.

He gave the kid’s shirt a tug. 

“Take it off," he blurted, voice thick with repressed rage. 

He meant to confirm that the boy had the whip marks he'd seen the other night, but in his hungover fog the sentence came out utterly wrong. He opened his mouth to reframe his words, but it was too late. 

Devyn's motions were jerky as he swept the shirt up over his head and let it fall to the floor, revealing his muscular, hairless upper body and the four long, wicked stripes Michael had seen on the bound figure the night before. The tattoo he'd glimpsed the night before was visually confusing, even up close; he couldn't make sense of it. The boy's skin seemed to be textured. 

But his attention was distracted; Devyn kicked off his shoes and dropped his pants, too. Michael’s jaw dropped. Devyn was naked before him, blushing from nipples to forehead. 

They stood there silently for a moment, Michael staring at the nude teenager in silent shock. He traced the scabbed, red welts on Devyn’s chest with his eyes for long seconds before he realized the welts overlapped older, white scars. 

And just like that--like a magic-eye picture--the nonsensical tattoo came clear, and the full understanding of what he saw hit his brain like a knockout punch. 

Scars upon scars upon scars upon scars. They were layered all the way down that rippling abdomen to the cleanly shaved crotch, though Michael's eyes rebounded back up the boy's body at that point. His own face was getting hot. The room was dead silent. 

After an unsure pause, Devyn turned around and bent over. He put his hands on the cabinet, lifted his ass into the air like an offering. Michael stared in horror at the new and old wounds on the young man's naked, beautiful body. As if in a dream, he saw his hand reach out and touch the inflamed skin next to a gash at the base of the boy's spine. Devyn flinched at the touch, but otherwise remained still and silent. 

Michael ran his hand down the boy's flank, thumb tracing the curve of his ass, as if to confirm that what he saw was real. Here, too, there were swollen, scabbed stripes over thin, white scars. His hand told him the same story as his eyes: uneven ridges where there should only be smooth flesh. 

_Whipped. Many times._

Fury and horror vied for first place in the emotions churning through him. His eyes flicked up to Devyn’s hands, gripping the cabinet. A pair of red lines circled each wrist. Red lines where the ropes from last night had bitten into him. 

They looked like cutting. They were the same fucking marks.

Michael slammed back into his body with a force that left him reeling. 

"Get your clothes on!" he barked. The boy obeyed, his eyes flicking nervously to Michael's hands then back to nothing as he fumbled his clothes on. 

_"Fuck!"_ Michael spat. 

"Sir, I'm sorry!” Devyn blurted. “Please don't tell anybody. I'm so sorry! Please, I want to work here!" 

Michael stared at him, mouth open in disbelief. The boy was afraid for his _job?_

"Dev--what the _fuck?_ Is Jason beating you? Is he—“ but he balked, and the words wouldn't come.

 _Give him an inch._

He held his hands up in front of him, as if he could hold the concept at bay. _“What_ is he doing to you?"

The boy met his gaze then, eyes flaring wide. Confusion was there, and fear. Michael watched him realize that, whatever he had thought was going on, this wasn't it. Devyn’s face went stark white. 

"Don't tell," he whispered, eyes filling with tears. “Please.”

It was practically a confession. 

"Are you _fucking_ kidding me!?" Michael lunged forward and grabbed the kid by his upper arm. Devyn went rigid at the contact, frozen as Michael dragged him toward the desk. 

"He can't get away with this _shit_ _!"_ Michael snarled, as he reached for the phone. "I'm calling the cops."

"NO!" 

It was the first time he’d ever heard Devyn raise his voice. The kid tore out of Michael's grip and shoved him. He was surprisingly strong, and Michael stumbled back a step. 

"You can't tell anyone. You can't tell the police. _Please,_ I'll be in so much trouble!" Devyn gushed the words out, panicked in the face of Michael’s silence. "You will be, too! He _owns_ this city. He owns _everything."_

"Bullshit!" Michael barked, then held his hands out in an apologetic gesture as the boy flinched from him. "Look," he said in a quieter tone, "Maybe it _seems_ that way to you, but when the cops find out what--"

A knock on the door made them both jump. 

"Hey, Jacobs!" One of the club's bouncers yelled through the door. "Where do you want all these crates? They're all fucking stacked in the hallway."

Michael paused, gulped in a deep breath. "Just throw them out back and have James break 'em down," he called back. His voice didn’t break; small relief, there.

Silence. He and Devyn stood across from each other, duelists each waiting for the other to draw. It was Devyn who spoke first. 

"Sir--please don't tell on me, sir. I'll suck you off every night, if you want. I promise I'll make you feel good. I suck really good, sir, I promise." 

Michael's stomach rolled over. He would never have taken him up on it, but that the kid expected him to--this beautiful boy who looked so much like Jason--took him over the edge. Devyn thought he was some sick pervert.

 _Like his father. My lover._

" _JUST GET THE FUCK OUT!"_

They must have heard his voice across the entire bar. It didn't matter. In that moment he was so furious, felt so violated, all he knew was that he had to be alone before he did something he would regret. Devyn rushed past him and out the door without hesitation.

Michael kicked the desk once he was gone, managing only to nudge the heavy hardwood a quarter inch across the floor. He leaned onto the desk, digging his fingers across its surface like he was clawing into Jason’s face.

When he came out later, Devyn was gone.

~~~~~

Michael was a wreck. That was all there was to it. He knew he was handling the situation very badly, but he was already half-drunk from the night before and he just didn't fucking care anymore. 

He kept his door shut and drank while the club was open, to help slow his racing thoughts and ease his still-pounding hangover. The staff surely knew he was smashed; he doubted he would have a job the next day. Not that it mattered. Nothing would keep him working for Jason after this. 

As soon as the club closed early that morning, he got in his car and drove. He wasn't entirely sure where he meant to go. Not until the moment he pulled up at the elegant gate of the Corbin estate.

He was buzzed inside. Of course he was. As far as Jason knew, he was still blissfully ignorant.

The bastard himself met Michael at the door, dressed in a handsome black button-down shirt and steel gray pants. The odd look on Jason’s face, though--that, Michael noticed even through the anger, the migraine, and his drunkenness. 

"Michael. You don't look well." His voice was so fucking calm.

Michael shoved the other man back into the house, stepped in, and slammed the door shut behind him.

"What the _fuck,_ Jason? What the _FUCK?"_ His voice rose from a snarl to a near scream. He fisted Jason's shirt and threw a sloppy punch, which Jason knocked aside like it was nothing. 

Jason just raised his eyebrows. He flicked his eyes past Michael's shoulder and his chin lifted. Michael turned in time to see someone come around the corner from the white room. 

_A cop! Thank god._

The man was in uniform. Michael recognized him; he visited the club from time to time to take care of the occasional scuffle or belligerent drunk. Somewhere in his forties, he had short blond hair, handsome Nordic features including pale blue eyes, and a bodybuilder's physique. The cop looked him up and down, then looked a question at Jason.

"Everything alright?" he asked, his deep voice solicitous. "Jacobs, isn't it? You didn't drive here, did you?" 

_Oh._

_Fuck._

There wasn't a shot in hell that he'd pass a breathalyzer test. 

"Look, Officer Shaw," he said, holding his hands out. The slur around the sibilants in “Officer” and “Shaw” were noticeable, even to him.

"I'm off duty. Call me Nate,” the cop said. “Come on, siddown and relax for a minute. You look like shit."

Michael spun on his heel and walked in Nate’s direction, glad to have the man between him and Jason. For whose protection, he wasn't sure. He followed the burly cop into the white room, and Michael let himself be pushed into one of the leather chairs. 

Nate poured him a glass of ice water, then held it out until he took it. Nate took a casual seat beside Michael and studied him with narrow eyes. 

"What's on your mind, Jacobs? You want to talk about it?"

Michael glanced up. Jason stood at the entryway. He looked Michael up and down, then addressed the cop.

"Look, why don't you guys take a minute. I'll be in the office." And just like that, he strode out. So casual, like nothing was wrong at all except Michael making an ass of himself. 

The urge to chase after him and break his face was an unvoiced scream in Michael’s chest. He turned instead toward the officer, and the truth came rushing out of him like vomit.

 _Believe me._ Maybe if he willed it hard enough, it would happen.

"Nate, I need your help. I know this sounds nuts, but I've been around here a few times, and Jason--he's been beating the shit out of his kid. I mean, a LOT. The kid's covered in whip marks and I think he's--I'm pretty sure he's been doing other things to him, too. Sexually."

Nate huffed out an incredulous laugh. "Is that so? That’s a hell of an accusation." 

Michael ran his hand through his hair, tugging like he’d pull it out. "I know, god, I _know_ , but--look, all you have to do is get the kid's fuckin' clothes off, and you'll see what I'm talking about."

Nate’s blue eyes went cold like a fire had been snuffed out. "Get...his _clothes_ off?” he repeated slowly. “Did _you_ get his clothes off?" 

Michael gaped. "Wha? No--nonono, that’s--" 

But movement at the entryway caught his eye; it was Jason, a drink in one hand and a legal folder in the other. 

Michael's mouth snapped shut. He knew he had both guilt and accusation written all over his face. Nate stood up, but when Michael started to, the policeman put a hand on his shoulder. 

"Why don't you stay there for a minute." 

It wasn't a question.

Jason strode up with unhurried steps and sat directly across from Michael, tapping the folder against his own leg. He flicked a glance up at Nate and nodded. Nate's hand left Michael's shoulder. Michael didn’t turn to follow the cop’s progress out of the room; he was riveted on Jason. How could he look so relaxed? Just as Michael thought this, a smile crept across Jason’s lips that made his blood run cold. That smile _knew._

"Curious boy. You curious little kitten," Jason mused. "You really got _my_ son to strip naked for you?" 

Michael's stomach was somewhere in his throat, now. He could barely talk around it.

"What?" he whispered.

"It's okay, you can tell me. Did you fuck him?" 

The question had come out so matter-of-fact, so void of any outrage, it took a moment to process what Jason had asked. And once processed, he couldn’t believe it. He could only stare.

Jason looked him up and down, and clicked his tongue. 

"I'm disappointed in you, boy," he sighed. 

He tossed the envelope into Michael's lap. Time slowed as Michael opened it and pulled out the contents. 

8x10 photographs. The office at Club 513. Michael and Devyn, shot from a high angle. 

_Security camera. Cameras in the ceiling._

The images swam in front of him. 

Devyn pushing at his chest. That was afterward, but you couldn't tell from the photograph. The pictures showed him grabbing Devyn. Showed Devyn stripping off his clothes, while they stood within touching distance. Showed the naked young man bent over in front of him, ass toward his crotch, his hand on the boy's ass. From this angle, it looked like he could have actually been right up against Devyn. 

It looked like he could have been _inside_ him.

The entire room shifted; Michael’s stomach and heart seemed to switch places. He leaned to the side and puked his last few shots of whiskey onto the floor. Jason watched him empty his stomach, then held out the glass of ice water to him. 

Michael grabbed it out of habit and drank, trying to wash the taste out. He released the glass as Jason pulled it from him, put his head in his hands. The room was spinning again and he desperately wished he hadn't had so much to drink, so that he could think straight. 

"I didn't do anything to him," he mumbled. "I didn't touch him."

"Michael," Jason said sadly, "I wish I could believe you. But," he gestured at the photographs to finish the statement. "I just can't believe you'd hurt me like this. A sixteen year old?"

"Sixteen," Michael echoed, and the floor dropped out from under him again. 

Devyn was sixteen. He’d never asked...he’d just assumed…

How could he have all those _scars?_ How had Jason gotten away with this for so long?

Movement. Michael looked up. Nate was back, and his hand rested on the butt of his holstered gun. 

Michael leapt to his feet, heart twisted up in his throat. Jason stayed seated, watching him. 

"Nate," Michael rushed, "I promise you, I _never--”_

The words died in his throat when he saw who was behind the policeman.

Devyn’s wrists were cuffed in front of him. 

He wore black silk shorts that barely covered the curve of his ass, but no other clothing, unless you were to count the leather collar and leash. Nate held the end of the leash in his free hand. 

Devyn was covered in black bruises that had not been there when he left the club: not whip marks, this time, but blows from something thicker, heavier. His head was lowered so far that only the top of his head was visible.

Michael stood frozen as Nate led the boy to his father's left side. Devyn had acquired a limp, since Michael had last seen him. There were bruises all down his legs. It looked like he'd been beaten with some kind of rod. 

_Or a cop’s baton._ Like the one that hung off Nate Shaw’s belt.

The leash passed hands and Jason pulled down on it. He watched Michael's expression as the boy lowered stiffly to his knees. Devyn’s rasping breaths filled the dead silence. Jason was still leaning against the back of the leather chair, completely relaxed. Transferring the leash to his right hand, Jason reached out with his left and buried his fingers in the boy's thick hair. He grasped and yanked back, pulling Devyn's head up and exposing his face. 

Devyn's nose and eyelids were angry red, swollen from crying. His eyes shone with a glaze of tears. He looked at the wall past Michael as though he wasn't there, but it was clear he was trying hard not to look at him, trying not to be present.

"Fuck," Michael croaked. He was shaking. He wanted to smash Jason's calm face in. He wanted to kill him.

"Devyn," Jason said, "what happened to you last night?"

The boy drew in a breath. When he spoke, his voice was toneless. The words came out measured, like he was reading from a cue card. 

"Sir, I worked until Mr. Jacobs came in at 4. We were in the office together and he locked the door. He told me to take my clothes off. I said no, but he said I had to do it or he'd tell you I was drinking in the club. 

"He grabbed me and I pushed him off. Then he punched me and threw me back against the cabinets. He said if I didn't play with him, he'd find me after work and cut up my face, cuz--cuz he knows where I live." The boy’s monologue was punctuated by a shuddering breath. "He said I was prettier than my Daddy and he wanted to see what I've got."

"Were you afraid of him?" Jason prompted. 

"Yes Sir, I was scared he would cut me. He keeps a boot knife." 

Michael's fists spasmed. He did keep a boot knife. Of course, Jason knew that. 

"So I did what he said. I took my clothes off and--" Jason yanked on his hair and Devyn gasped. His voice cracked as he stammered, "he beat m-me, and--and f-fucked me!"

Jason let go of the boy's hair. Devyn hunched forward, hiding his face. His cuffed hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists. Jason drummed his fingers on his son's shoulder, staring into Michael's eyes. 

_No one will believe what really happened._

That was the fucking brunt of it. Michael was much bigger and stronger than the teen. He hadn't made a secret of his sexual preference, either. Plenty of people knew he liked beautiful men. He had no illusions that it would be a far leap in people's minds to see him as the predator of a pretty, underage boy. 

Michael’s swallow was loud in the silent room. 

"What the fuck do you want?" he whispered.

Jason smiled. No--that wasn’t a smile. It was a _sneer._ He pulled on the leash, drawing Devyn toward his thigh. He pulled Devyn’s head up against his leg and smoothed his hair back to expose his face again. Michael watched, sick down to his bones. 

"I want a lot of things, kitten. But there are three things I want from _you."_ Jason stroked his son’s cheek, holding him in place. Devyn’s red eyes remained fixed on nothing. 

"You're a naïve little boy, but a good manager. You just need a little experience. My plan is to run heavy traffic through Club 513. But I need someone to manage it. I want you to manage it. _Officer_ Shaw will help you with the arrangements." He emphasized the word, _officer._

"Drugs," Michael said flatly. Jason nodded. 

"Of course. And, obviously, I want you to keep this night, and everything that ever has happened or will happen between us, entirely to yourself." Michael's eyes flicked to the cop who stood watching them. Nate had his feet apart; one hand loosely clasped the other wrist in front of him. He looked like a bodyguard. Except for the smirk.

"And the third thing?" 

Jason grinned that lopsided grin at him, baring his teeth. "I want you to come by tomorrow morning after work. For drinks."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Screams and curses for this cliffhanger may be directed toward the author here or on [tumblr](http://subverbaldreams.tumblr.com/fics), [newtumbl](http://subverbaldreams.newtumbl.com/), [or twitter](http://twitter.com/SubverbalD). 
> 
> kudos = one prayer  
> comment = instant access to heaven and all its arcade games


	7. Eternity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The circle of iniquity widens.

Ransom Kenward sidled around to the back of the van as soon as it stopped, its side door facing the lane behind the club. The guy who came out to meet him was so tall, Ransom had to crane his neck to make eye contact. _Jacobs,_ that was his name. Haunted, dark-circled eyes told his story and Ransom almost snorted out loud.

Corbin was training up another pup.

The man's neck was smooth: he hadn't been branded yet, but the shadow of Corbin's attention was there, in his eyes. Of Ransom’s twenty-odd contacts around town for Eternity distribution, every one of Corbin's front-line disposables was organized, obedient, and broken.

Corbin was the most dangerous psychopath Ransom had ever worked with, and after eight years thriving in the murder trade, that said something. He owned most of the city, and had disposed of his rivals with a viciousness that had earned him a widespread reputation in the criminal world. 

He didn’t live it up like the other drug barons Ransom had known--no decadent parties and towering mansion, though he must have millions socked away. But he had _control._ There were never any drug stings, no SWAT team invasions. He protected his trade.

It wasn't that the man was a twisted fuck, although he was. Intelligent, too, and manipulative, but that still wasn’t it.

The crux of the matter was that when Ransom had first met Corbin, first looked into his eyes, he had seen a vortex of lust so intense it had chilled him. Talk was cheap, but what he had seen at that moment told him to keep his head down and to watch his step. 

Ransom pulled a long metal case with a number pad on its front from a compartment on the underside of the back seat. He followed Corbin’s new dog into the club. Jacobs led him to the office, where Ransom unlocked the case and pushed the lid back to display the merch.

One thousand tiny white boxes, stacked neatly within the case’s padded confines. He slid it over to Jacobs, who lifted out one of the cubes. 

"A hundred each," Ransom said.

Jacobs glanced at him. "It went up." 

"Supply and demand." He shrugged. "Let the fronts handle it." 

Jacobs nodded vaguely. He was staring through the desk, now, and seemed to have forgotten about the cube in his hand. There was a lost air around him, but that was typical of Corbin’s playthings. In this business, you were either a predator or a victim. 

Ransom left without a word. He had a lot of deliveries to make.

****

Alone in the office, Michael Jacobs slumped against the desk and turned the little white cube in his fingers. 

It didn’t _look_ sinister. It could have held earrings, or maybe some collector’s polished stone. It certainly didn’t look like an appropriate vestibule for a mind-melting poison.

Then again, he still didn’t feel like a drug dealer. So, not much was as it seemed.

In the course of ten months he had gone from managing a crew of bartenders, bouncers, and general staff to handling all of the above as well as accounting and oversight for Club 513's burgeoning drug trade. It consumed his every waking moment, although he maintained his martial arts practice and weight lifting—now out of a sense of necessity, more than any real desire to do it. 

There were no bars on the walls, but he still felt caged. 

The fronts handled the actual distribution and cash exchange. The bouncers and cops handled the security, as well as the secrecy. Michael was just the clerk. The administrative assistant. 

Jason's whore. 

To Michael it felt like everyone knew, though he was fairly certain that only Jason's personal cop-slash-bodyguard knew the extent of his state of slavery. The nonstop fear and hatred he had endured since his induction into the criminal world had burned a hole in him until he didn't feel it anymore. More often than not, he felt disconnected from everything. 

He just took care of business. Just a clerk.

He gently pulled each side of the box, until it slid into two halves. Cradled in the bottom half was a little sphere, about four millimeters in diameter. Swirling within the sphere was a glimmering, slowly spiraling double-helix. An alien eye regarding him, just as he regarded it. The drug. 

Eternity.

~~~~

Ellen stuck out her hips and leaned her elbows back against the bar. She held her drink with practiced negligence, displayed herself like a work of art for whoever might happen to be looking. 

Her man for tonight--she thought he'd said his name was Jake--reappeared from the crowd a moment later and quirked his eyebrows up at her. His thin lips were lifted in a shit-eating grin. She mimicked the expression, a real sense of excitement bubbling in her chest. They were in business!

Jake (or James, or whatever) led her through the dense crowd to the stairs at the back of the club. The bored looking bouncer let them past, and they climbed the stairs to an elegant upper hallway that cut short at a large double-door. A ticket-taker’s style kiosk sat at the top of the stairs, with a bored-looking girl seated behind it. She glanced up at the pair of them. 

"Two hundred for two," she monotoned.

Jake/James/whatever handed her a roll of bills from his pocket. As she counted it, Ellen eyed the man who guarded the closed door behind her. He wore a shoulder holster and stared straight ahead, looking at everything and nothing at once. 

_So TV crime drama,_ she thought with a thrill.

The girl stashed the money away and brought up two small, white boxes from behind the counter. Jake took them, handed one to Ellen, and the dead-eyed guard stepped aside for them. 

Low, sensual music washed over them as their eyes adjusted to the dim light inside the guarded room. Shapes lay scattered across the floor; as Ellen’s eyes adjusted she realized they were people, all stretched out on cots as far as she could see.

Some simply lay there. Others writhed, murmured vaguely, or were locked together making out. 

It was weird, she thought, but no worse than a bunch of frat kids on X. Still, she was glad to take Jake’s hand when he offered it. 

They sat down together on the edge of an unoccupied cot. Ellen’s skirt hiked up on her thighs. She made sure to strike a pretty pose for Jake’s hungry eyes. His hand found her knee and started stroking it in the most irritating way possible. She had to fight down an urge to throw his hand off and scratch the spot he was fluttering over. Was he trying to be erotic? Good god, yes, he was. He leaned close and pressed his lips to her ear.

"Have you ever..." Jake breathed, "... sipped from the cup of Eternity?" 

Ellen lowered her head coquettishly and rolled her eyes. 

_And he’s a fucking poet. Should’ve just tried my luck with the bouncer._

"No," she whispered back, as his hand crept up her thigh like a centipede. "This will be my first time. With you, Jake." 

_Please let him pass out before I have to see his dick._

He pulled back from her and frowned. "My name's Reg."

_Oh._

_Woops._

Ellen recovered her sultry smile and lifted the tiny, white box to her lips. She held his eyes while she kissed it. _Don’t be mad,_ she said with her eyes. _I’m just a silly little thing._ Her red lipstick stained the white cardboard, and Reg’s scowl became a leer. Easy peasy. 

They each opened their boxes. The double helix inside each sphere glowed in the dimly lit room. Ellen lifted hers between two fingers, fascinated. It was beautiful. 

Reg leaned over and sucked the globe from her fingers. Like a slug. He opened his mouth to show her the glowing orb on his tongue before swallowing it. He held his own dose of Eternity to her lips. She did the same. It was why she was here, after all.

He leaned over, thin lips reaching for hers. Normally, Ellen would close her eyes when she kissed someone who squicked her out as much as Reg did. She wasn’t sure why she looked into his eyes. They were blue like the ocean, and that was just strange; how could she see the color at all, in this barely-lit room? She focused on them...

And into them...

And _through_ them. 

It must have started the second the drug had hit her tongue.

She could see through Reg’s head, through the walls, to the pulsing crowd below. To the street, and the people walking it. She could see their blood move in their veins, could hear their synapses sing with every thought, every heartbeat, every breath. She saw a child asleep in his bed two miles away, saw the expansion of his very bones as he grew. 

She could taste, hear, feel, see and smell _everything._ The whoosh of air through the atmosphere. The chirp of every single insect on the planet was singularly distinguishable. 

The blinding burst of a sunspot. 

The empty howling of Mars. 

The panoramic scent of a meteor shower. 

The sharp edged, slick, caustic shell on the back of some multi-limbed _thing_ skittering over the bleached landscape of a distant planet.

"Everything," Ellen breathed. The signals formed in her brain, rushed down to her tongue and lungs. Vibrated her vocal cords, relaxed her diaphragm. 

"It's everything." Her breath pushed a scented plume of carbon dioxide into the air where it swirled and dispersed. 

She melted back on the cot with Reg, and they flowed out into the universe.

~~~~

Rheven was crying. 

Tears flowed down her cheeks and her chest heaved in stutters, but she made no sound at all. 

She leaned against the wall in the upstairs study, arms wrapped around her bare knees. She wore only a pair of blue lace panties which revealed more than they covered. Daddy always dressed her in blue, to match her eyes. Her long, black hair pooled on the floor behind her. 

Her pale skin had blossomed with purple bruises at the arms and thighs. The marks on her hips were in the clear outline of large hands. 

Rheven pulled into herself when the door moved, then relaxed as her brother slipped into the room like a ghost. He came to sit next to her on the floor, a few careful feet away. He leaned back against the wall, held his knees, and looked straight ahead in a mirror of her posture. 

He said nothing, did nothing; he was just _there_ while she cried, and Rheven was grateful. 

Devyn understood. He let her know she wasn’t alone. 

Rheven picked up her sheer, torn dress from the floor beside her and wiped her cheeks with it. 

"Master Shaw said that Treske is coming soon," she murmured in a thick voice. 

Devyn stiffened in the corner of her vision, like she’d known he would. 

Treske worked with their father. He was a frequent visitor in Rheven’s nightmares, even though she and her twin had seen him only once, when they were fourteen. Only once, but she remembered every second of it.

***

_Two years ago_

"Stay in this room," Daddy said, as he slipped his handgun into the shoulder holster he rarely wore. He covered it with an expensive leather jacket and slid a second, small pistol into the jacket’s pocket before he pulled the sides into place and checked the lines with his hands to ensure they lay flat. His face may have seemed blank to most, but Rheven recognized a difference in him. A humming tension. 

Some new supplier was coming tonight. Someone who had put their father, the ever-confident predator, on his guard.

Daddy went downstairs, and they waited. Rheven sat on the floor by the rolltop desk, doodling on a scrap of paper. Devyn stood at the narrow window and peeked through the drapes into the black night outside. 

Rheven’s stomach lurched when she looked up again to find her brother at the door, reaching for the handle.

 _"What are you doing?"_ she hissed. He frowned and held up his hand, telling her to be quiet. Rheven gripped her pen so hard, it flexed. She shook her head at Devyn, silently imploring him not to open the door.

 _"Just stay there,"_ he breathed. _"I'm just gonna look."_

He cracked the door and peeked out, then slipped through it sideways and pulled it most of the way closed behind him. He didn’t even look at her; probably _felt_ her censure enough already. Rheven sat for a long breath, tense as a piano wire, before she got up and padded after him on bare feet.

Devyn was already at the end of the narrow hallway, crouched and craning his neck to look around the wall, over the balcony and down into the white room. 

He caught Rheven’s movement from the corner of his vision and looked back at her, eyes wide. He made a pushing motion with both hands, telling her to get back in the room. She lowered her brows and mouthed, _"No!"_ Then voices drifted up from below, and Devyn was tugged back to his spying posture. Rheven got on her elbows and belly to shimmy up beside his knee. Devyn flattened against the wall so she could look around him.

The visitor stood below, both hands clasped in front of him on the handle of a suitcase. He wore an expensive grey suit, with a pastel green shirt peeking out at the collar. He stood in profile, speaking with their father, who was out of sight. 

He had a handsome, clean-shaven face. High cheekbones, and his eyebrows arched sardonically over heavy-lidded eyes. His hair was a deep, rich auburn, thick and long and tied into a ponytail at the back of his neck. But the most impressive thing about him was that his skin was white. Not pale, but _white,_ like the frost inside the freezer. The only part of his flesh that had any color at all was his lips, which were a pale shade of pink rose. 

He was...exotic. Beautiful, Rheven thought. He was a beautiful man, and that meant he wasn’t safe, here. 

The back of a head with blonde hair appeared below them. Master Shaw, of course; he’d become their father’s favorite assistant these last couple of years. Master Shaw set down a large duffel bag in the middle of the room and backed out. His hand rested on his belt, right next to his gun.

The white-skinned man's mouth was curved in the tiniest smile, as though the whole scene amused him. He strode casually forward, set down the suitcase and picked up the duffel bag, then backed away. 

"Go ahead and inspect it, if you like. I have all the time in this world." His voice drizzled into Rheven’s ears, honey-warm. She suppressed a shiver.

"Maybe you should check the bag as well." Their father's voice came from beneath the balcony.

"I see no need. I'm sure everything is in order." 

"It is. And if it wasn’t, I'd _fix_ it," Daddy said. It was a warning, not an appeasement.

The stranger's mouth lifted further into that amused smile. 

"How nice that we can trust each other. I look forward to a lasting and profitable relationship with you, Mr. Corbin."

"The pleasure is all mine, Treske." The words were courteous, but it was his dangerous voice. When their father took on that tone, people got hurt.

Treske nodded, then looked in their direction for a parting nod at Master Shaw. His full face was visible for the first time. 

He went perfectly still—like he had just seen a black widow crawling over the back of his hand. His nostrils flared, as if he was trying to smell something. 

Treske’s chin lifted, and his eyes landed _directly_ on Rheven. 

She couldn’t move a muscle. It felt like he was right up in front of her, close enough to smell her skin. His eyes were the color of living amber, and they shone with something primordial. Sensual. _Hungry._ The iris seemed to move in lazy waves, a sight so alien that her breath stopped. 

Devyn unfroze first. He jerked his head back around the corner, grabbed the edge of Rheven's one-piece negligee, and jerked the silk fabric upward to pull her to her feet. She found herself stumbling to keep up as he half-dragged her with him back down the hallway and into the study. He was always so careful not to touch her; his recklessness in grabbing her clothes scared her almost as much as what she’d just seen. 

Devyn practically slung her back into the room, then he whirled and began to slam the door. He came back to himself just in time to catch it before it could bang shut, and eased the latch silently closed. 

He stayed pressed up against the door, trembling. Rheven was shaking, too. Time passed like cold dough through a sieve as they stood there, trying to hear anything past the low hum of the air conditioner. After a long stretch of silence, her brother sidled to the desk, withdrew a screwdriver from one of its drawers, and returned to his vigil, the tool held like a knife at his side. They endured an endless period of tense alertness before footsteps sounded outside the door, slow and purposeful. 

Devyn backed up to Rheven, one arm out in front of her. She had to walk backward to avoid it. He kept walking until she was pressed against the wall, almost hidden behind him.

The handle turned and the door slammed open in a single moment. 

Their father filled the entire doorway. He looked down at them from what seemed an impossible height, as if his anger had caused him to grow another six feet. His eyes _burned._

Devyn let out a whimper. The screwdriver fell from his hand. 

Rheven burst into tears.

She cowered behind Devyn, trying to disappear as Daddy moved on them like a furious thunderstorm. He towered over Devyn, who had frozen in place.

 _"Move,"_ Daddy snarled. 

A shuddering whine escaped Rheven’s lips. She clamped them shut. 

Devyn held his hands up in surrender. 

"Sir, it was me," he pleaded. His adolescent voice cracked over the words. "It was me, I'm sorry, Sir _I'msosorry!"_

The last came out in a high pitched shriek as their father grabbed his right shoulder and lifted him with one hand. Daddy slammed him back against the wall so hard his breath huffed out, then held him there with his feet suspended off the ground. Devyn’s teeth bared in silent pain. 

Daddy’s free hand shot down and gripped the top of Rheven’s hair, forced her head back so she was looking up at him. He lowered Devyn until his feet touched the floor, then slammed his forearm against Devyn's chest, knocking his breath out. Daddy held him there, pinned against the wall by his forearm, and looked back and forth between them.

"You will _never_ do that again," he gritted through clenched teeth. "This is not a joke. This is not a game. If you think that I am hard on you, then you are _WRONG."_

He used Rheven’s hair to slam her back against the wall, then released her hair and wrapped his gigantic hand around her neck. A whine of absolute terror keened out of her throat. His fingers felt like huge, metal rods under her hands. She couldn’t budge them.

Daddy loomed into them both. His bulk sucked the air out of the space, left her lightheaded. He bent down until his eyes were inches from Devyn’s. 

"That man," he growled, "would strip the skin off your body and _eat_ your _heart._ You are _food_ to him." 

He shook Rheven by the throat to punctuate his words. It drew Devyn’s attention to her. Stars popped through her vision. Daddy wasn’t letting her breathe. 

Devyn's face went utterly, horribly empty as his eyes focused on her strangled face. It was like her brother had just disappeared from his body, leaving her behind. 

_Don’t leave me, Vyn. Please, please._

"Do you want her to die?" Daddy whispered into Devyn's ear. Devyn shook his head back and forth. His movements were no longer quick and panicked. He was in slow motion. He was pulling away.

Daddy lifted her by the throat until her heels came off the ground. Black spots burst in front of her eyes. She had both hands over his, trying to support herself and take the pressure off her neck.

"Sir, please stop," Devyn said. His voice was emotionless. Echoey. Or maybe it was just her head that was echoey. 

_Vyn, don't leave me. Don’t leave me!_

"Sir," Devyn breathed, falling to his knees. Daddy released him, let him fall, but he still held Rheven on her toes. 

Devyn knelt at their father's feet and pressed his face against the man's boot. He slid his hands under the hem of Daddy’s pants, cupped his leather-clad ankle with both hands. 

_"Sir, please stop. Sir, please forgive me. Sir, please forgive me. Sir, please forgive me..."_

And he just kept saying it, repeating it in a mantra while he rubbed his face against Daddy’s boot, like a cat scent-marking.

The grip on Rheven's neck gave way. She staggered and plopped onto her tailbone. Hacking coughs between great, gulping breaths of air and she was shaking, but so grateful. Devyn didn't even seem to be aware that their father had released her. He just kept begging for forgiveness.

Their father knelt and sat back on his heels in front of Devyn, took his face in both hands and pulled Devyn’s head into his lap. Devyn pressed his face into Daddy's legs and gripped his thighs. 

_“Sir, please forgive me. Sir, please forgive me…”_

Those big hands turned Devyn’s head so that he faced Rheven. Devyn’s voice faded away, but his mouth kept moving and his eyes were unfocused. 

"Think of her," their father said gently, "the next time you want to do something daring." He gave Rheven a thoughtful look, stroked Devyn’s hair and sighed. "It’s partly my fault. I thought I could go easy on you. But that doesn’t work with you, does it?” His fingers tightened in Devyn’s hair, pulling it so his neck stretched out. Vulnerable. Rheven didn’t dare look away. 

"Next time I have business with Treske, you two will stay in Time Out ‘til it's over." 

Rheven's body went cold. Devyn just kept gripping their father's legs and mouthing the words to his mantra.

_***_

Ever since then, when Treske was due to come to the house, their father would take them to the basement.

The boxes were custom-made. Twins, Daddy called them. Each was six feet long on the inside, and eighteen inches high. They had ventilation holes, but the air inside stayed stale no matter what. Waterproof padding did nothing at all to cushion the hard wood. 

Time out. 

Rheven always cried, at first, when she was locked inside her box.

Devyn was worse. He would scrabble at the lid and scream until his voice was gone. She didn't know why he did that. It was so tight already, she thought fighting would just make it worse. But he never did get better about it, and that was the reason Treske's name now filled him with fear. 

Rheven handled Time Out very differently from her brother. Instead of struggling, she would close her eyes and take slow, deep breaths. She would imagine herself in a beautiful place, surrounded by trees. The faraway screams would be from great wild birds that swooped down over a lake and dove beneath its surface. They would swim with their wings, then launch back into the air again in a rainbow spray of water. The tears on her face were really water from the spray of those fantastic wings.

Time Out wasn't so bad. She could do anything she wanted, there. She could be strong and great: a goddess, who flew through the air and crushed evil intruders with her thoughts. 

Inside of her little padded box, she could be free.

~~~

"Shit--Ven!" 

Her brother's soft voice interrupted her trance, making her jerk. 

“Unh?”

"Get up. You're bleeding." He was gone as he said it, dashing toward the bathroom.

Rheven rolled to her knees with a dismayed gasp. She'd spaced out so thoroughly, she hadn't felt it happening. There was a dark spot on the hardwood floor where she'd been sitting.

Devyn had already returned with a handful of moistened toilet paper. He cleaned the floor while she wobbled into the bathroom to clean herself. Now that she was standing, the full pain of what Master Shaw had done to her settled into her lower body. She wasn’t sure if the blood was coming from in front or in back. A trickle ran down her thigh, made it to her knee before she reached the toilet. Devyn came back once for more paper, before he finally returned to flush everything.

"It all came up," he reassured her.

She nodded. She didn't even want to consider what their father would have done to her if she'd stained the floor. She tried to thank her brother, but her lungs felt stiff and the words wouldn't come. He knew, though. She knew he did.

She had to stay on the toilet a while, waiting for the bleeding to stop. Devyn sat close by her feet. After a little while, he took several lengths of toilet paper and started rolling and tying them together. Rheven leaned over to watch him work. Her mind eased into a gentle drift as she settled into the rhythm of his motions. She never knew for sure what he would make, but it was fun to try and figure it out as he went along.

In the end, he created a little creature that could have been a snowman or a penguin, a dog that jumped through a hoop and slept in a hammock (that was a length of toilet paper tied between the two bars sticking out of the wall that held the roll itself), and a little tub for a lake, with a folded boat in it. 

Once the bleeding had stopped, Rheven eased off the toilet and got on the floor with him. She picked up the snowman/penguin. Its belly and head were just a wad of toilet paper stuffed inside a single square. Devyn had tied a folded shred around its neck which demarcated head and torso, and also served as a scarf. He'd pinched the "face" to make it stick out, and she wasn't sure if it was supposed to be a carrot nose or a penguin's beak.

The little creature wavered in front of her. She blinked tears out of her eyes. Devyn looked up, just one eye showing through a part of his hair. Rheven turned the penguin/snowman toward him and tipped its head in a rapid pecking motion.

"Erk, erk," she squeaked, her mouth twisting into a sideways smile.

Devyn's one eye smiled back at her. He picked the dog out of its hammock and made a quiet growling sound, then flicked it at her. Rheven tried to catch it without squishing it, but it bounced off her arm and fell. Devyn made a whining-dog noise and laughter bubbled out of Rheven's chest, wet through her tears.

Both of them went rigid at the sound of footsteps. 

Devyn was the first to act. He scooped up the lake and boat, the hammock and hoop, while Rheven took the snowman/penguin and dog, and they both tossed the toys into the toilet, which Devyn flushed. 

They were sitting across from one another, Devyn with his hair over his face and Rheven turned slightly away, when the footsteps reached the bathroom doorway.

Everything was dead silent for a while before Rheven finally turned to look.

Master Shaw stood at the doorway, thumbs hooked into his gun belt. He caught Rheven's eye and smirked at her, reached one hand down to squeeze himself through his pants. 

She knew she looked afraid. She knew he liked it. He took in her mostly naked body and Devyn's, and she could see him considering it. He was in a mood today; he usually wasn't ready again this soon. Daddy would be pissed if he took her again while she was torn, but telling him so would only make him angry, and he would turn that anger on Devyn. She breathed as discreetly as she could, and watched him fondle himself. He’d punish her if she looked away.

"Shaw," crackled the radio on his hip. Rheven and Devyn both jumped. Master Shaw got a bored look. He leaned one elbow against the doorframe and clicked the radio.

"Yeah."

"You coming up front?"

"In a while," Master Shaw answered. He winked and made a kissing face at Rheven, but the radio-voice came back angry.

"Do not tell me you're fucking that bitch _again._ I need to get home, man! Jessica's waiting and I been late all week."

Master Shaw didn’t just roll his eyes; he rolled his whole head. He turned from the doorway, voice growing distant as he strode out of the room.

"That bitch has you seriously pussy-whipped, Marcus. You need to put some fear into her and quit being such a goddamned..." The door slammed behind him, muffling the rest of his tirade. The twins stayed put until his voice faded entirely.

Rheven broke the silence first.

"Was that a snowman or a penguin?"

Devyn shook his head to reveal that one eye to her again.

"Both," he said, the side of his mouth quirking as he spoke. "It's the kind of snowman that penguins make."

Rheven's lips twitched. "You're just making that up cause I asked."

Devyn shrugged and gave her a rare smile. He looked askance at the toilet.

"Well, if he's a snowman he's melted, now," he mused. "But if he's a penguin, he's swimming out to the ocean to meet his friends."

Rheven grinned, delighted at that.

"Penguin, then."

Devyn nodded agreement.

Since Master Shaw would be busy for a while with shift change, Devyn pulled out strips of toilet paper and twisted together a few more shapes, some of which neither of them could figure out, but they threw out guesses for fun. They remained engrossed until their father's voice drifted up from below. 

At the sound, Devyn's whole bearing changed. His eyes spaced out; the sense of him went distant. He lost all interest in the game. Rheven could almost hear him thinking of excuses to leave, until Devyn finally said he was hungry and that he was going downstairs. 

She knew that if she followed she would find him, not in the kitchen, but in whatever place he thought their father was likely to go. Devyn would be standing or kneeling for him there, waiting to be noticed. She'd seen him do it for hours straight. 

It wasn't until her brother was gone that she even remembered she was in pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gave you a fat chapter and ended it with sadness. Why, whyyy.
> 
> "Whyyyy" me at [tumblr](http://subverbaldreams.tumblr.com/fics), [newtumbl](http://subverbaldreams.newtumbl.com/), or [twitter](http://twitter.com/SubverbalD). 
> 
> kudos = pancakes  
> comment = cinnamon rolls with extra torture


	8. A Proposal, Of Sorts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael is just learning how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Michael and Jason knelt on the floor, facing each other. Michael's hands were bound behind his back in metal handcuffs. Short chains secured his wrists to his spread ankles, which were also cuffed. 

He shivered as the air conditioner came on. The vent was blowing straight on him, and he wore nothing but the chains Jason had put him in. It hurt to shiver, hurt to be kneeling there. Every movement hurt like hell. The welts on his back still hadn't healed from two nights ago, because they'd been layered over some unhealed lashes from last week, which covered some bruised skin from another lashing before that one. 

The bruises were worst over the thin skin of the scars. Fucking scars. Little by little, he was acquiring a collection. The pain was such a constant, he could tune it out half the time.

Jason was still mostly clothed. His shirt was unbuttoned, and a right-handed cross-draw gun rig was strapped around his shoulders. His pants were open just enough to free his huge cock, and his hard body was pressed against Michael's. He cupped Michael's head with one hand, his lower back with the other, and curled over him, arching him backward as he plunged his tongue down his throat. His chin stubble scraped over Michael's lips, leaving his mouth raw. The cold butt of the gun brushed against Michael's side, sending a chill through him that had nothing to do with temperature. Jason's left hand slid down his sacrum and between his ass cheeks. The rough touch was bearable, until his thumb pressed abruptly into Michael’s hole.

" _Ow, fuck!_ " Michael snarled into Jason's mouth. He clenched down and tucked his hips forward, trying to escape the burning sensation. Jason chuckled low in his throat, and dug his thumb in deeper. The gun pressed between them, uncomfortably wedging under his ribs, a blatant reminder of what would happen to him if he tried to fight. 

Humiliated heat rolled all the way up his chest and into his face. The sight of Jason’s gray eyes watching him made him want to scream. He tried closing his eyes, but it amplified every other sensation and he wound up opening them again.

Jason fucked Michael’s throat with his tongue and fingered him open, sending hot pulses of electricity through his center. 

It didn’t matter how much Michael hated-- _hated_ \--what was happening to him. His body was too fucking dumb to know any better. And Jason knew every way to touch him, to make his body wild for release. It used to make him feel cherished, how carefully Jason watched his reactions in order to work him up to a higher state of lust. Now, he knew it for what it was. Jason loved to manipulate him. Loved that he could make him hard, even when hatred was eating him alive.

Michael wasn't allowed to touch himself anymore. Not that he hadn't bucked those orders, at first...until he learned that Jason could tell if he was lying about it. The punishments had been so hellish, it just wasn't worth it. And he kept turning up the heat. Jason called him over a few times every week now, each time spending an hour or three breaking him down. 

It was worse than just the torture. He felt like Jason had somehow entered his mind. 

Jason had whispered into his ear countless times about his network of associates throughout the country, people who would find him if he tried to run, until he could swear he saw a watchman on every street corner whenever he left his house. Some of them might have been his imagination, but sometimes he was certain it really was a lookout for Jason. Nate Shaw had even pulled up right next to him at a stop light, in his police car, and smiled at him. 

A couple of times, Jason had got on a roll and spent hours telling him (whenever Michael’s screams quieted enough to hear him) what would happen to him if he went to prison for sexual assault of a minor boy. And no matter what day of the week, no matter how long it took, Jason never stopped a scene until he had Michael balanced right on the knife edge between pain and lust. Not until his thoughts were in tatters, and his abused body was rock-hard, aching for release. Then, it was time for him to debase himself and beg for Jason to let him cum.

Every time he failed to resist and vocalized that need, he felt like he lost a piece of himself. The reward for submission was mind-bending pleasure; the punishment for resistance was increasingly severe pain and humiliation. It was getting harder to distinguish between pain and pleasure, humiliation and lust. He was so ashamed of the things he'd done for Jason, he drowned himself in his work at the club to keep from thinking about them.

Michael hadn't been the bottom for anal sex very often. Even after he'd felt free of the memory his uncle had left on his body, he'd much preferred topping men who enjoyed it--finding ways to make them squirm, pant, and beg for more. He'd allowed Jason to convince him to take his tongue and fingers, and then to try a few small toys, before their whole fake relationship had gone to hell. 

Jason had planned it out the entire time. The first time they'd had sex afterwards, Jason had taken him completely. It had hurt--a lot--but the worst part was that it had also felt incredible. Jason had taken it slowly and touched him all over, had bitten and stroked him in every way the man knew he liked. He thought he would rather have been raped with violent force, because having the greatest orgasm of his life, while being fucked in the ass by a child molesting drug dealer who had blackmailed him into sex, had left him with a tight knot of shame and helpless rage in his chest that never seemed to go away entirely. 

There was a bang on the door. Michael jumped and gasped. Jason shifted into a crouch, putting a hand on the butt of his gun, but not drawing it.

"What?" Jason said calmly as Michael knelt there, flushed and panting, his hard dick jutting out in front of him like a flag of surrender.

Nate's voice came through the door. "Delivery in thirty minutes." 

Jason looked at his watch and scowled. _"Cocky prick,"_ he muttered. Then, loud enough to be heard through the door, "Call in Kenward." He stood to tuck his still-hard cock into his pants, then he knelt behind Michael. 

"Get dressed and go home. Daddy's got work to do."

Michael turned from pink to dark red. The last of the cuffs came free, and he staggered over to lean against the bed--one of his feet had fallen asleep--and began pulling his clothes on in swift, furious motions. 

"I'm not your--your fucking kid," he stammered; his brain had tripped him up halfway through the sentence, telling him to shut the hell up in front of the psychopath with the gun. Jason's gray eyes flashed up at him, but without anger.

"That's right," Jason mused, "I need to put the kids to bed. You know, kitten, I think it's time you helped out around the house a bit." 

_Kids. Kid-s? Plural?_

Michael’s heart sank. Was he going to be one of the "kids?" It wouldn't be the weirdest thing he'd been forced to do. 

Jason gestured for Michael to lead the way out of the bedroom. He sent Michael back up the hallway and into a door adjacent to the white room, while he disappeared up the stairs. Michael tipped the door inward, stomach coiling with dread, but he was surprised. It was a small exercise studio. 

Devyn stood next to a rack of weights, doing alternate bicep curls. He looked up through his mask of hair as Michael came in. He wore nothing but a pair of blue running shorts (they were, like everything his father dressed him in around the house, short enough to flash the curve of his ass) and sneakers. The boy was allowed to wear shoes when he was working out, but nowhere else inside the house. Neither was Michael, anymore. Not since Jason had removed his friendly mask and showed him the monster underneath.

Almost a year had passed since their first meeting. The kid was a little bit taller now, his form steadily growing into its full potential. He still had the most stunning face Michael had ever seen--his beauty was almost unearthly. His broad shoulders framed the perfectly cut shelves of his pectoral muscles; his ribcage tapered into a small waist with rock-hard abs. There was a little flare at his hips before they were veiled by his shorts, and his round ass curved out in profile. Full, defined muscles rippled in his legs when he moved. 

Two things ruined the vision. One was the set of fresh, red welts scoring his sides from armpits to knees, curling around him like tiger stripes and speckled with the dark red of burst blood vessels under the skin. The other was the scars: some thick and raised, but most of them thin, white and feathery. They started at his collarbone in front, the top of his shoulders in back. They danced down his arms, back, and chest to the waist of his shorts, showing up again below the shorts' hem and skittering less densely down his legs, all the way down to his ankles. No matter how old he got, or how far away from his bastard father, he would never be free of those markings.

_Neither will I._

The now-familiar rage flared in Michael's chest before returning to its steady, pulsing throb.

 _But he_ wants _it,_ he reminded himself venomously. _That's the difference._

He didn't condone what Jason did to the teenager by any stretch, but he'd seen enough of their encounters by now to know that Devyn was a _more_ than willing participant. Michael had barely been able to look at his uncle after his childhood rape. He would as soon have killed him, if he could have gotten away with it. But Devyn's eyes tracked Jason like the bastard was God himself. He almost radiated zealousness to please the man. When his father kissed him--or stroked his ass, or pinched him, or even slapped him, all of which made Michael want to vomit--he invariably responded like a puppy that was simply ecstatic to be played with. He'd fetch Jason's drinks, chains, whips, clamps, and gags with equal eagerness, avoiding Michael's eyes the whole time--even when Michael was the one the chains, whips, etc., etc. were meant for. Michael felt sure that if he heard the boy say "Daddy" one more time, he _would_ vomit.

Of course, Jason would probably just make him lap it up off the floor.

Michael cleared the sickened knot out of his throat. 

"Your..." 

He realized he couldn't say it. _Your dad. It sounds so wrong. It_ is _so wrong._

"Jason wants you to come with me."

"Yes sir, Mr. Jacobs," Devyn said and returned the weights to the rack. 

He was always so polite to everyone, even to Michael. Once, Jason had called him into the room during one of their "training" sessions, when Michael had been naked and chained to the wall. Jason had noticed one of the bolts coming loose, and had called the boy in to fix it. Devyn had excused himself as he wedged his hands past Michael's clenched fist to reach the bolt in the wall. He'd called him "sir," not seeming to understand the irony at all. Michael had hung his head against the wall and laughed in overwhelming despair at the madness of the entire situation. The oblivious boy had apologized, thanked him and called him "sir" again before he left.

Michael turned away while Devyn removed his shoes, and tried to clear his mind. He spent a lot of time, lately, trying not to think. The boy came out and padded after him back down the hallway, but while Devyn turned expectantly to the last door on the right, Michael turned to the door on the left.

"Mr. Jacobs?" Devyn asked. Michael looked up at the tone. It was fragile, somehow. Thready. Through the veil of black hair, he could see the boy was looking past him, eyes locked on the door.

"Come on," Michael grunted. The boy shivered. Half naked and covered in sweat, he was probably getting cold out in the hallway. At least, that was what Michael wanted to believe as he pushed the door open and held it for the boy.

Michael had never been in here, himself. He had thought it was another room--maybe yet another giant bedroom with restraint loops on the wall--but the door instead opened to an alcove and a downward staircase. A basement. 

Devyn led the way down, taking the steps much more slowly than he needed to. At the bottom of the stairs he stopped and glanced around, but they were alone; he put his back against the wall and stood there, head down and gaze at his feet. He was barely past the bottom step, as though he didn't want to enter any further. Michael descended the last step and walked around him. He started to survey the basement, but quickly found himself trying not to see any of it. 

Racks. Chains. Cuffs. A cage big enough for a large dog--or, more likely, for a person. That was all that registered before he averted his eyes, heart pounding. 

This was a torture room. It was _huge._ Pillars ran to the ceiling and the room continued behind them. Some walls ran three quarters up, leaving space between them and the ceiling, but the room extended far beyond them. For all he could tell, the cellar was a complete third floor underneath the long, two-story house. Months had gone by, and he'd never known of this. The enormity of that fact was mind-boggling, because it meant that what he'd experienced thus far was not even close to the bottom of the pit that was Jason's sadism. 

Michael backed up, realizing that he could, in fact, be more disturbed than he had been before. He found himself putting Devyn halfway behind him.

"What's going to happen?" Michael asked. The gruffness had emptied from his voice. He just felt light-headed and sick.

"Don't know." At that moment, Devyn sounded neither eager nor zealous. He sounded very young and small. 

Michael looked back at him. Devyn was looking up at him; at first he looked quickly away, but his gaze returned when Michael kept staring. There seemed to be a question there, and Michael realized he had a hand out in front of Devyn, as if he was going to shield him somehow from that room of torment. 

_Wish I could, kid._ He was unbearably aware of his impotence whenever he was under Jason's roof. 

They stood together silently, frightened children in the dark waiting for the monster to come get them.

The cellar door opened and they both jumped. Devyn jerked himself well out of arm's reach. Michael followed suit, putting more distance between them. Jason already had a stunning array of weapons against him; no need to hand him ammunition.

Michael looked up the stairs, bracing himself for Jason’s cocky smirk. 

What he saw made his mouth drop open. 

Slowly descending toward him was...some kind of vision. Her long, long black hair swished against her back and thighs as she walked. Her youthful figure was clothed only in a powder blue satin shift which clung to her hips and barely touched her thighs. Her nipples perked against the thin, shiny fabric. Her face was nearly identical to her brother's - she and Devyn were obviously siblings - but it was more slender. Delicate and feminine. Angelic. Her heavy lidded eyes were downcast, but she held herself erect as she walked. 

_Like a queen being led to the guillotine._ Her long, bare legs bore some red stripes and bruises, but for the most part her skin was surprisingly unmarred. Yet, they had to be about the same age. Why was Devyn so badly scarred, and not her?

Jason stepped down behind her, a looming shadow to her tremulous light. He was once again wearing his leather jacket. 

The girl reached the foot of the stairs and shrank against the wall. Jason’s eyes skirted over Michael and took in Devyn—a long, head-to-toe assessment that made Michael’s skin crawl.

Jason’s cold eyes landed back on Michael. He jerked his chin at Devyn. 

“Make sure he follows.”

He took the girl’s arm and started walking into the basement, while Michael was still processing the order.

 _Make sure—?_ It didn’t make sense. Devyn was always ecstatic to be wherever Jason was. He was already walking after Jason and the girl; it was Michael who lagged behind them all.

Just another head game. That’s all it was.

Jason led them deep into the basement, around several corners, until Michael wasn’t sure he’d be able to find his way out, alone. He tried desperately to keep his bearings without seeing too much. His nightmares were already vivid enough.

He was putting a mental marker on something that looked like a fucking guillotine when he found Devyn suddenly blocking his path. The kid flinched at Michael’s nearness and shuffled forward, picking up his pace.

Only then, did Michael realize Devyn was trembling. His feet jerked ahead, but each step seemed weighted. Ahead of them, Jason had brought the girl to a harshly lit corner where two long, rectangular chests lay side by side on the floor. He pulled open one of the lids while Devyn and Michael hung back. It yawned on its hinges, revealing…

Nothing. The box was empty. Like a coffin, waiting for a body.

And it hit him.

_Coffins. These are coffins. Oh god._

Jason caught his gaze. His cheek lifted in the ghost of a smirk. _Now you’re catching on,_ it said. Then his eyes flicked to Devyn, who still hovered at the edge of the alcove, and a line creased between Jason’s eyebrows. _And I told you to make sure he followed._

Michael’s hands balled into fists. He wasn’t going to force Devyn closer. He wouldn’t. 

He couldn’t.

No, in that moment he wanted nothing more than to grab both the kids and run. To bandage them up and keep them safe. No one deserved this, no matter how sick they were. That he couldn’t stop it--and worse, that he was now actively participating--was eating him away from within. 

_And he knows it. It's the reason you're here right now. He wants to break you._

The divine looking girl had just begun to step into the gaping maw of the open coffin when Devyn fell to his knees. He hit the ground before Michael could catch him, with a painful-sounding crack against the hard floor. He curled over himself, arms wrapped entirely around his own stomach, fingers clutching his sides. His breath sucked in with a tight-throated whistle and whooshed out of him, over and over, faster and faster. He was hyperventilating.

The girl froze, half inside her coffin, then started to move toward her brother, but Jason held a hand up. 

"No." 

She stopped. Her regal, disinterested expression had vanished. She looked like a deer in headlights. Catching Jason’s ominous expression, Michael felt much the same. He dropped to one knee beside Devyn.

 _“Get up,”_ he whispered.

No response.

Jason’s black boots thumped closer until he stood right in front of them. He gestured with a dismissive shooing motion of his hand for Michael to back away. Gritting his teeth, Michael stood and backed up. 

"Get up, boy." 

But for the first time Michael had seen, Devyn did not obey. He curled tighter over himself, pressing the top of his head into the floor.

 _"Devyn,"_ Jason growled, warning in his voice.

_"Nn--nn--no--I--can't--I can't--no--no--"_

Each word was a whimper, expelled between frantic inhalations. Jason considered the boy for a moment, then zipped his jacket up, hiding his gun, and knelt down beside him. He whispered something into Devyn’s ear. 

Devyn’s words dissolved into a high-pitched whine of torment, punctuated by wheezing gasps. Still, he didn't move. His nails dug red furrows into his skin which filled slowly with blood, adding more stripes to his sides between the lash marks. 

Jason stood with a heavy exhale and left the boy with Michael still standing over him like a useless sentinel. He crossed the room and pulled a box from a niche in the wall. Inside of the box was a full syringe, which Jason palmed. On the way back, he grabbed a leather collar from its hanging place atop a contraption that looked like a bench press with manacles. Thus armed, he returned to his son. 

He yanked the boy's shorts up on the right side, revealing his ass cheek. He uncapped the syringe, stabbed the needle into the exposed flesh, and pressed the plunger all the way down, then tossed the syringe aside. He took the collar and unbuckled it, slipped it around Devyn's neck, and fastened it while the boy gasped for air. 

Within seconds, Devyn’s hands began to relax and release from his sides. The gasping breaths began to slow and steady. Jason wedged his hands under Devyn’s armpits and lifted him to his feet; he swept an arm under the muscular young man's legs and easily picked him up. Devyn's head lolled onto his shoulder. He lifted his arm slowly, as though it weighed a ton, and wrapped it around the back his father's neck in a half-hug, clinging to the back of his jacket. 

_“Daddy,”_ Devyn moaned.

Jason ignored him and jerked his chin at Michael. 

"Open the lid." 

When Michael simply stood there, Jason looked up from his son again, his eyes darkening. 

_"Open the lid,_ boy," he repeated. Threat radiated from his tone and goaded Michael’s numb body into action. He walked forward on wooden legs, heaved the lid open and stood back. 

Jason lowered his boy into the coffin, murmuring to him the whole while. 

"Sometimes I have to do things to you, son, that I don't want to do," he said. He sounded so sincere. He smoothed Devyn’s hair back, stroked his cheek with something that looked just like affection. 

Devyn's eyes were barely slitted open. He clung to his father and mewled, "Sir, don't leave me," in a voice that was already fading. 

Jason kissed his full lips, tenderly tasting him, cradled his head and petted him.

"I'll be right here with you," he breathed against his son’s lips. He slipped a finger under the leather collar as he said it, giving it a tug for emphasis. Devyn lifted his free hand to caress the collar. He whimpered. 

Jason put his mouth to the boy's ear and murmured, "Dream about me." 

Devyn's eyes fell closed. His hand relaxed its grip on Jason's jacket, and his arm slid off of Jason's shoulders. Jason gently lowered the unconscious boy's head and shoulders into the coffin, arranged his arms at his sides, and shut him in, engaging the latches with heavy "thunks" of finality.

He looked up at the girl, who had been immobile the entire time. She ducked her head and lowered to sit into her own little prison. Jason went to her, knelt and kissed her just as deeply. He caressed her curves, slid his tongue into her mouth and sucked on her upper lip, then the lower one. 

He stroked her cheek as she lay down. 

He shut the lid over her, and locked her in.

Michael watched it all in a haze, like he was watching through a window into some dark movie. He was aware, in a detached sort of way, that his skin grew colder as Jason paced back toward him. Jason got up close and took his chin, tilting Michael’s head up from its defeated slump. He only realized at that moment that he was crying. Jason captured his gaze with those burning eyes, assessing his expression, the tears on his face. 

Michael didn't try to hide it. As far as he cared at that moment, the children deserved someone's tears. Someone's sorrow.

"You're right, kitten," Jason said quietly. "You,”his upper lip curled back in disdain, "are not my kid." His hand closed over Michael's triceps; he spun him around and prodded him back toward the stairs. Michael’s shoulderblades twitched at the weight of Jason’s eyes on his unprotected back.

"But I'll _always_ be your Daddy." 

Those last words sunk in slowly. Sunk into his stomach like lead weights. 

Step after heavy step, Michael walked where Jason directed him.

~~~~

The white room was empty of furniture. 

Treske stood closest to the house's entrance. Jason Corbin faced him from across the room, about twenty feet away. Against either wall between the two dealers stood Ransom Kenward and Nate Shaw, both in postures of relaxed readiness.

Ransom had received his first call to work these exchanges a little over two years prior. The dollar amount had been staggering for a single night's exchange. The catch was that it might get messy. In his experience, it frequently got messy. So he had taken the job.

The deal was tightly run. It had been a few exchanges before Ransom even realized Corbin had gunmen expertly hidden near the gate. If anything went sour, the supplier wouldn't be leaving the premises alive.

When the supplier had first arrived, he began to understand why he was being paid so well. The man rolled into the room on a wave of humming energy. His skin was whiter than snow, but he wasn't an albino. His rich auburn hair fell around his face in perfect waves, around his collar and down his upper back. His auburn eyebrows and eyelashes framed amber eyes which burned with an inner heat. Ransom knew a predator when he saw one. This one was more than that. He remembered feeling naked without his familiar Ruger on his hip.

Corbin provided the weapons for his guards: a Glock 22 for Ransom, and he’d refused to negotiate when Ransom wanted to keep his own gun. Then he had given some words of advice so bizarre, Ransom never forgot them: _If you think he's about to make a move, don't wait, and don't try to shoot where he_ is _. Shoot where you think he's_ going _to be._

Every exchange so far had been smooth, though there was always a thrum of tension between Corbin and Treske that set Ransom's teeth on edge. He had bought and spent a lot of time practicing with the G-22 (he wasn't allowed to take Corbin's from the premises, but even though he now had his own, Corbin still made him use the one he was provided). Now, the gun felt like an extension of himself.

He was glad for it. There was something charged in the air tonight.

"Mr. Corbin, so nice to see you again," the supplier said with a small, pleasant smile. His unpigmented skin made the white walls look like some other, dingier color--beige, maybe. The familiar metal suitcase rested by his feet.

"Good evening Treske,” Corbin said flatly. “I thought trade was going well for you. Are you so eager for business?" 

"I came early so that we would have a chance to talk."

"Thoughtful of you," Corbin remarked. "If I had only had more notice that you were changing our meeting time, I would have freshened up a bit."

Treske’s lips quirked. "It was not my intent to be rude, Mr. Corbin. I have a business proposition for you that I hope you will find...desirable." The corners of his mouth curled up, slow and deliberate. His hooded eyes looked _hungry._

Corbin's eyes heated up almost sensually in response as he gave a matching smile. 

_They're either going to fight or fuck,_ Ransom thought. His fingers twitched near his gun.

"I would love," Corbin purred, "to hear it."

"What I am offering you is control of the entire Eternity trade as well as a nationwide distribution network which I have already in place."

Corbin's eyebrows raised, only a little, but Ransom thought he surely had to be floored by the offer. 

"Is this coming from the senator?" Corbin asked.

Treske's smile widened genuinely, flashing perfect white teeth. "Mr. Corbin, I did not realize you were so well informed. But no. The senator is not capable of making this offer. I am."

"What are you expecting in return?"

Treske’s eyelids lowered. "Your children. I want your children." 

Ransom and Shaw both swung their heads to look at Treske, with Ransom, at least, doing a quick scramble to catch up with the situation. 

_Corbin has kids?_

And on the heels of that: _no way should any children be handed to this hungry-eyed devil._

Although he wondered if it was really worse than the idea of being raised by Corbin. 

_Well._ _Whatever Treske wants them for, it ain't to send them to Sunday School._

Corbin’s poker face was perfection. His expression said nothing. His mouth said, "Anything else?"

Treske spread his hands. "Just that. That is my price."

"How long do you want them for?" 

Treske bared more teeth. He looked like he was about to bite. "Forever."

Corbin went quiet. Ransom and Shaw both kept their eyes on Treske. Ransom's hand rested on his gun.

"No deal," Corbin said finally. 

Treske lowered his hands and clasped his wrist in front of him again in that casual posture. One finger tapped slowly on his wrist. 

"I'm not sure you've thought this through," he said. The smile was gone. "With what I am giving you, you'll have plenty of opportunity to," his lip curled, "breed."

"I have thought it through and you have your answer." 

Treske's eyes hooded dangerously. "I think you fail to consider the role I play in your ability to run your little city," he began.

There was no warning other than a sensation of Corbin tensing up, then a rush of air. Ransom blinked. Then his mouth dropped open. 

Ransom's gun had jumped into his hand at the sensation of movement, and was aimed where Treske had been standing. 

Treske, however, was all the way across the room. His lips were peeled back in a vicious snarl; one arm was pulled back and ready to strike. Corbin had taken two steps forward and stood braced in a point shooting stance, his mouth set in a grim line, the barrel of his gun aimed directly between Treske's eyes from barely an inch away. Ransom had not seen either one of them move. 

_What the fuck?_

He swiveled and aimed at Treske's torso while he stepped a few paces sideways to level with the two men, so he wouldn't accidentally hit Corbin. From the corner of his vision, he saw Shaw draw his gun and do the same. 

_So, I didn't just blank out. He's catching up, too._

"Do not _ever_ threaten me," Corbin snarled.

No one in the room moved for what felt like a full minute as the two deadlocked, glaring into each other's eyes. Finally, Treske blinked and seemed to coil back into himself. His fist lowered. Putting his hands out at his sides in a conciliatory posture, he backed slowly toward his briefcase. All three men kept their guns trained on him. 

"Is this your final word on the matter?" His voice was calm, but his eyes glittered furiously in that placid face.

"It is." Corbin’s voice was flat; he did not lower his gun. His aim never wavered.

Treske sighed and shook his head, as if in resignation. "Then we should finish this night's business." 

The exchange followed as usual, except that everyone had a gun in his hand. Everyone except for Treske. Ransom had always thought he kept it hidden at the small of his back beneath his suit jacket, but now, considering how Treske had simply vanished and reappeared on the other end of the room, he suspected that the man felt no need to arm himself at all.

After Treske left and they were certain that he was past the gate, Corbin turned to Ransom.

"I'm offering you a job as a full time security guard, starting immediately," he said, and told him the salary.

Ransom agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week was rough so I missed last Saturday’s update. Consider this it, and I’ll try to post another one this coming Saturday!
> 
> Your adoration and praise can be directed toward my [tumblr](http://subverbaldreams.tumblr.com/fics), [newtumbl](http://subverbaldreams.newtumbl.com/), [or twitter](http://twitter.com/SubverbalD). 
> 
> kudos = It was ok  
> Keysmash = I liked it so much I asrjhthrjk


	9. Not Like the Others

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ransom meets the whole family

Bigger on the inside.

That’s what kept running through Ransom’s mind as Nate Shaw showed him around the house. Corbin had (obsessively) arranged each and every space with a purpose, and it brought to mind the question of whether he’d come up with it himself, or paid an interior designer to decide which room would be devoted to black rubber and which would house the slatted glass table with its steel cable restraints and two cameras underneath. He’d heard of Corbin’s infamous basement; every criminal in Sommet knew about it. He guessed Shaw was saving the best for last when, instead of heading downstairs, the cop led him out the back door and into the chill air. 

A high wall ran around the entire perimeter of the estate; topped with iron spikes, it was a fair deterrent to trespassers even without the human security. A portion of the back yard had been sectioned off into a dog run made of twisted iron bars. Four walls and bars over the top: it was artistically done, but it was still a cage.

Inside that cage, there was a chain. A thick, heavy chain that ran twenty feet from an anchor into the maw of a dog house the size of a small shed.

“He stays in during the day. Usually comes out, by now,” Shaw remarked. _“Koval!”_

The chain twitched at his call, and for a wild moment Ransom was sure there would be a human gimp on the other end. But the eyes that emerged from the lair were a solid, intense yellow, and both of them lined in a thick swath of black that trailed up to a point on either side of the animal’s head, giving it a mysterious look. It was far too big to be a dog, but it was like no wolf Ransom had ever seen. Its shaggy pelt was a brindled pattern of black, amber, and white stripes. When it stood, Ransom guessed its weight to be around Shaw’s: two fifty, maybe. It was a fucking beast.

“Stay back while I get ‘im out,” Shaw said as they neared the enclosure’s latched door. The animal rose and kept pace with them, yellow eyes fixed on Ransom.

“Koval, _sedni! Zustan,"_ Shaw snapped.

It sat back on its haunches and a growl rumbled out of it, a sound like rocks tumbling in a dryer.

“Yeah, yeah,” Shaw groused. Ransom edged a hand toward his belt as Shaw unlatched the gate and let it swing open. 

"Is that a wolf?" Ransom asked.

Shaw unhooked the chain from the beast’s collar and switched to a shorter chain leash. He grimaced.

"Corbin says it’s not. Koval’s a special breed; took him years to find one. Oh--and he cost a few mil, so keep that in mind. Anders an’ me are the only guards allowed to handle him right now, but Corbin wants you trained too.”

Ransom looked down--though not very far down--at this animal that was worth more than he was. "Ah."

"He'll get used to you soon enough," Shaw assured him. "He's smart as hell--smarter’n some of the cops I work with. We'll keep him around while we're together until you get a handle on him."

"Fair enough," Ransom replied dubiously, eyeing the beast. 

Shaw smirked and turned back to the house, flanked by the wolf that wasn't really a wolf. 

"Come on. Tour's not over yet."

Back in the house, Shaw and the wolf led him down to the basement. Conscious of the other man's eyes on him, Ransom took in the torture room without expression. After all, he had known Corbin was a sick bastard when he took the job.

"Nice, huh?" Shaw asked, again with that nasty little smirk. 

"Looks functional." 

Shaw snorted. "Oh, it is," he leered. "Trust me on that. I’ve got more sweet ass workin’ this gig than in five years bustin’ hookers. You toe the line and you can ride this out til ya retire."

Shaw kept up his monologue as they walked through the maze, which assailed Ransom’s nostrils with the scent of leather and bleach. They passed a long tilt-table with four-point restraints and rounded a corner. At the far side of the alcove was a pair of long, dark wooden chests. Corbin knelt beside one of them. The lid was open, and Corbin was in the middle of lifting a limp young man up from the interior. 

The young man wore nothing but a tiny pair of shorts and a black leather collar. He groaned as he was brought into a sitting position. Corbin put a water bottle to his lips. The boy wrapped his hands around Corbin's hand and forearm, partly to steady the bottle, and partly to hold himself up as he drank. Then he sank back as if the effort had been too much, and leaned his shoulder and head against the open lid. Ransom looked at his slack and utterly lovely face in recognition. 

_Your children._ There was one of them. Lying in a coffin, barely conscious. Wounded. Scarred.

Corbin’s gray eyes bored into Ransom’s as he stood up. "Like what you see?" he asked softly.

Ransom shrugged, checking himself, smoothing out the crease that had begun to develop between his eyebrows. 

"Your house, your rules." 

Corbin crooked up the corner of his mouth and strode around to the second long box, unlatched it, and lifted the lid. The occupant let out a soft sigh as the light entered. Corbin gazed down into the box, and his twisted smile relaxed into something softer. He reached in and lifted a girl by the shoulders, helping her into a sitting position, then he brought the drink to her lips. She squinted and blinked, adjusting to the light of the room, before her big almond eyes focused past Corbin, on Ransom and Shaw. 

Ransom kept his face stoic, but his heart flipped when their eyes met. Her eyes were a brilliant sapphire blue, ringed with a starburst of gold. It wasn’t the common, coppery brown tint, but a vibrant golden fire that almost glowed. Her voluptuous, dark pink lips were parted, and sparkled with wetness. He quickly wrenched his gaze away. It was never smart to get caught ogling a drug lord's prize possession.

"This," Corbin said, petting the girl's hair, "is my daughter, Rheven." He gestured to the slumped figure of the boy; "and that is my son, Devyn. They stay in the house at all times." 

"Yes, Mr. Corbin."

The girl stared at Ransom with unabashed curiosity, then her eyes lowered and focused past him. Her whole face lit up.

"Grr!" she cried in a happy voice.

And she's crazy. Super. 

Something must have slipped over his expression, because Corbin chuckled. He motioned at Shaw, who walked the huge wolf over. Shaw gave it some lead and spoke a command. 

The girl leaned out of her box as the wolf approached. As soon as it was close enough, she reached out to rub her hands through its thick fur. 

"Hi, Grr," she said to the wolf, a distant smile lighting her face. Koval seemed happy.

Corbin walked back to his son, who groaned as his arm was lifted around the big man's shoulders and he was hefted to his feet, head dangling. 

"Carry on," Corbin said. He turned, holding the young man's wrist with one hand to keep his arm around his shoulders. His other arm wrapped around Devyn’s small waist, and he helped the boy shuffle around the corner. 

Once they were gone, Shaw walked the wolf away from the girl and gave the _“sedni, zustan”_ command again. Koval sat. The policeman walked back to the girl. Her little smile had disappeared. 

He took her wrist and pulled her to her feet. She gasped, stumbled. He grabbed her around her tiny waist and pulled her against him, then reached up and under the back of her powder blue shift to cup her ass. Skin flashed; she was bare beneath the shift. Shaw's fingers slid between her legs and she cringed. The wolf began that low, warning growl again from its seat several feet away. Hence the nickname “Grr,” Ransom guessed. 

Shaw didn't seem fazed. If the creature had made a sound like that at Ransom, he would have taken note--but hey, he was the new guy.

"Get blood tested every two weeks," Shaw leered at him, "and you can have this. The boy, too. An hour with these two costs more’n it’s worth for anyone else, but we get special perks working guard duty. Corbin's only rules are: you never mark up the face, and don't do anything that'll leave a scar." He pinched the girl's breast, making her flinch. 

"What about the other one?" Ransom jerked his head in the direction Corbin and the kid had gone.

"What?"

"He's got scars all over him."

Shaw snorted. "Corbin did that himself. And don't think he won't notice if you make any additions.

"Oh, and for fuck's sake, never break any bones. I knew a guy did that once to Devyn, cracked one of his ribs. You do _not_ want to be that guy. He's never gonna get any action again, if you get my drift." He made a snip-snip motion with his fingers.

"Good to know."

Shaw groped the girl a moment longer, then released her and turned back to Ransom. She stayed where he left her, head down to hide her face. 

"Come on, I’ll show you the sub-basement." 

Shaw took up the wolf's leash. Koval continued to growl.

~~~~

Shaw led him around a couple more corners. Just as Ransom was beginning to feel like a rat in a maze, they came upon a heavy metal double-door, built into the floor at an angle. Shaw unlocked and opened it, revealing more stairs. The two men and the wolf descended the steps. Shaw flicked a light switch on the way down to activate the buzzing fluorescent lights. 

The room was less cavernous that the one above it, with a ten-foot or so ceiling and a concrete floor. Lining one wall were some shelves stacked neatly with various supplies and canned goods, and enough weaponry to arm a small militia. There was a pair of bunk beds against the wall, and a plain metal toilet and sink combo. Shaw led him through the room, pointing out the location of the ammunition cases as he did. The end of the long room held another thick-looking metal door with a keypad lock. 

"This goes to an escape tunnel," he said, and gave Ransom the sequence. Ransom committed it to memory at once, then asked,

"Where does it come out?"

"That's need-to-know," Shaw affirmed with another smirk. It seemed to be a habitual expression for him. "You only go through this in an absolute emergency, and only on Corbin's orders. Got any questions?"

"Yeah." Ransom turned to him. "Treske. How did he move like that?"

The smirk dropped off, and Shaw made a face. "He's some kind of freak. Genetically modified or something." 

_In other words, you have no idea._ "And Corbin?"

Shaw shrugged, looking uneasy. "Look, the guy's got a lot going on I don't know about. But the money keeps coming in, and we get plenty of play-time, you know what I mean?"

_Yeah, you're a goon with a hard dick. Got it._ "Yeah," he said absently, looking at the guns on the wall. 

_If you think he's about to make a move, don't wait, and don't try to shoot where he_ is. _Shoot where you think he's_ going _to be._ He knew what Corbin had meant, now. He would be ready.

~~~~ 

Devyn didn't want to open his eyes. He was being held in big, strong arms. Cradled. Comforted. All his pain was washing away, coming back, but then washing away again, like a receding tide. He nestled against his father's warm arms and chest. Daddy held him so gently. Protected. 

_Please, don't stop._

"I love you, son. I love you," a deep voice murmured. It made his heart swell, painful and wonderful, and Devyn moaned. 

"I love you, son." 

As it spoke, the voice grew lighter, more feminine. The hard muscles of the arms became slender and pliant. A delicate, fresh scent filled his nostrils, like honeysuckle and jasmine. He sighed and pushed deeper into that warmth, into the yielding curves. 

Ebb and flow. Pain and relief. Warmth. Safety.

The sense of serene comfort was broken by the sound of a man’s heavy footsteps. They started at a distance, but they were coming nearer. Underneath that innocuous sound was…

Something else. 

Something deeply hidden...rolling up from underneath the earth…

_(as though all the world was an illusion, made to camouflage it)_

Something that would destroy him if he ever saw it. 

He held his breath, tried to be invisible, but the steps kept coming closer. Ice water filled Devyn’s veins, stealing the warmth away, paralyzing him. The soft voice continued to speak, but it no longer touched his heart. 

Pressure built in his chest. He had to warn the warm presence, to get her away from him. Someone was coming; they were coming for _him,_ not for her, but if she was with him she would be hurt and it would be his fault...his fault...his fault. He had to move...to get up, to hide her...had to get her away from him, from the evil that was coming down on them. 

"I love you, baby." 

_No! No!_

He couldn't move. Couldn't speak. 

The room went black. 

Huge hands closed over his arms, but he was already paralyzed. The comforting voice stopped in the middle of a word, cut off into a deafening silence that hung all over his body like viscous fluid. 

_NO! NO! NO! NO!_

He fought to move, to break free of the grip that was crushing his arms. His hands moved forward a bare inch, and his palms slid up against something. 

It was flesh. 

It was cold... 

_Nononono not again not again noNONOPLEASE—_

The world closed in on him. He was suffocating, buried. Dirt filled his mouth. The beautiful vision was dead and buried...with him... _because_ of him. His fault. He had destroyed her, and all that was left was cold, and suffering, and darkness. Nothing could help his loving angel. Nothing could save him from his punishment. Now that it was useless, now that nothing was left for him, he found his voice and screamed. 

Everything flew apart.

~~~~ 

Corbin had left Ransom and Shaw during the early hours of the morning, but Shaw's brief shift had ended about an hour ago. He had gone back to his friendly-neighborhood-police-officer day job. His replacement, a dead-eyed slab of meat named Steinmann, was out prowling the perimeter. Ransom was in a room at the front of the house, a security command center around the corner from the front door. It was accessible, but wasn't visible to anyone coming in if they didn't already know it was there. He was checking the monitors, a vast array of split screens which revealed most of the interior and exterior of the estate, when he heard a noise from the back of the house. 

There was nothing unusual on the screens. Ransom strode out of the command center, through the white room and into the long hall, gun in hand and pointed at the floor. Someone was definitely screaming, the sound thick and muffled. He listened at each door, until he found it. The door was unlocked.

This room was themed in pale gray, with thick metal rings spaced along all the walls and ceiling. He looked cautiously around the corner, scanned the room in an instant. Then he lowered the gun.

The young man Corbin had half-carried from the torture room hours ago was laid out on a double sized black rubber mattress in an overbuilt metal bedframe that was also festooned with metal rings. He lay on his back, still wearing the shorts he had been in earlier. The collar was gone. Padded restraints secured him spread-eagled to the bed, leaving him very little room to thrash--which he was doing, violently. Alone in the room and apparently unhurt (aside from the wounds Ransom had seen on him before) he sobbed and screamed from behind a strip of black leather which covered his mouth. 

Ransom approached the bed with caution. Something about the kid’s deep-chested screams raised the hair on his arms.

He heard a rustle behind him and whirled, gun raised. One gold-ringed sapphire eye widened at him from around the corner of the door, then vanished.

"Wait," he called, embarrassed. He holstered his weapon and held his hands up to show they were empty. "It's okay. You can come in. You just startled me."

Pale fingers cupped the door frame. Black hair came next, followed by the rest of the girl's lovely face, eyes locked on him like a startled rabbit. He looked away, back at the young man on the bed. He held still so as not to startle her, and the girl padded up to the bed on bare feet, giving him a wide berth. She gazed down at her struggling brother. 

"What's wrong with him?" Ransom asked.

"It's the medicine Daddy gave him, sir. So he could go in the time-out box." Her voice was mellow, melodic even, though her words were chilling. "He gets nightmares, but the medicine makes it so he can't wake up. This," she reached out a hand as if to touch him, but only hovered a few inches over his jerking arm, "it's so he doesn't hurt himself til it wears off."

"Can’t you wake him up?"

"Sir, no, sir," she said, shaking his head as if that were unthinkable. "I can't touch him." She tilted her head and looked up at him speculatively. "You can, though, sir. Will you, please? Just...so he can stop screaming?"

He didn't want to, but he saw no reason not to make a show of it just to make her feel better. He leaned over the bed to grasp the kid's shoulder and shook him. As expected, it didn't help. He shrugged at her.

"Master," she said tentatively, "may I please speak, sir?"

Ransom raised his eyebrows at the phrasing, but gestured one hand in a go-ahead motion. She circled him to the young man's lower body and her hands hovered over one foot, weaving with his motions to avoid making contact. 

"Sir, um, if you apply direct, intense pressure to this pressure point..." 

She tried to point, but the boy, locked in his drug-nightmare, wouldn't hold still. She made a cute little frustrated scowl, then lifted her own foot to demonstrate. "This pressure point...it should cause the unresponsive person to regain consciousness." 

Ransom found the corner of his mouth lifting in a bemused smile. 

"Where did you learn that?" It sounded like she was repeating verbatim something she had read from an emergency responder's textbook. 

Her cheeks flushed, making her look very young. "I--sir, I read it. Daddy has some books on what to do if someone is hurt, sir." 

_I'll bet he does._

"Alright, I'll try it, but if it doesn't work then we'll stop, okay?" 

She nodded with another _sir-yes-sir,_ and he switched places with her. He caught Devyn’s foot as his leg extended, held it, and jabbed his thumbs into the spot she had shown him.

Devyn went stiff as a board. His leg locked up, and he grunted hard behind the gag. Then he let out something that sounded a lot more like _"ow, ow, ow,"_ and Ransom released his grip. 

The girl leaned over her brother. His eyes were open. He turned his head to look at her and made a questioning sound. 

"It's okay, Vyn," she reassured him, "it was just a bad dream from the medicine. You're in the training room. Everything's okay." 

Her hand fluttered over him as if she wanted to stroke him for comfort, but she did not. The young man hummed a couple of syllables through the gag and she smiled down at him. 

"Sure,” she said, then looked up at Ransom. "Thank you, sir."

"No problem," Ransom told her. The boy seemed just then to recognize his presence and he stiffened up, fear flashing across his blue and gold eyes. 

Ransom backed off, trying to appear non-threatening. 

"I'll leave you two alone." 

As he neared the doorway he heard her say quietly, "It's okay; he's different. He's not like the others." 

_Not like the others._

He left the room and pulled the door shut behind him.

_Little girl, you don't know what you're talking about._

The girl's voice was just audible through the door, speaking quietly to her bound brother.

  


~~~~

Rose Taylor looked down at her cell phone as it buzzed once, briefly. A text flashed at her: _"Sticks and stones may break my bones but whips and chains excite me. Looking for a good time?"_ followed by a string of numbers. 

She rolled her eyes and returned to her work. The funding proposal was dead in the water, she knew, but Mr. Brantley was quite insistent. She couldn't get him to understand that the money was no longer necessary.

_Think of the devil,_ she thought as the doorknob turned. Senator Brantley entered, looking distracted and rumpled. She stood and circled the desk to him, handing him a file folder. 

"Sir, the meeting with Mr. Kelly is at noon. I've prepared your file and the proposal is nearly finished."

"Good, good," he said vaguely, patting his pocket. She handed him his pen. He scribbled his signature on the bottom of the manila file she had just handed him, without looking at it. 

Rose didn’t even blink. She took the pen and the file from him, removed the papers, threw away the signed folder, and replaced it with a clean one, which she handed back to him. 

"Good," he said again. She put a hand on his arm and guided him to his office.

"I'll be in shortly with the proposal."

"Rose?" the senator asked, as she stood poised to leave the room. She turned. 

"Yes, Mr. Brantley?"

He looked at the door, then at her, then at the file sitting in front of him. His eyebrows furrowed, as if he was wondering how it had gotten there. 

"Will you be here for the meeting?"

"Yes, Mr. Brantley, don't be concerned. It will all be taken care of."

He smiled. "Good, good," he said, and swiveled in his chair to look out the window.

Rose closed the door on him and returned to her work, deftly handling calls and requests from activists, lobbyists, and politicians. 

The senator looked out his window at the flowing clouds.

***

Rose parked on the curbside and entered the phone booth. She pulled up the text ad, then dialed the number at the bottom. A brusque man's voice answered after half a ring. 

"Hello."

"It's me."

The voice on the other end of the line changed, turning into a warm purr. "My girl, pretty as a flower. I always love to hear your sexy voice." His tone lowered. "The things you could do with that voice, my little rosebud."

"Call a 900 number. Was there a reason you texted me?"

The man chuckled. "Isn't sex reason enough?" His voice dove deep with promise, caressing her eardrum. _"My little ice queen, someday I'll get you so hot you'll melt."_ Then his tone abruptly returned to something that was almost businesslike. Almost. "But yes, I have an ulterior motive. What's the state of our cash cow?"

"Which one?"

"The one on the leash."

Brantley. Her lip crooked in a sneer. "I'm holding him together, barely. Someone will notice; it's just a matter of time."

"What's your feel on Whitey's plans once his little toy breaks?"

_Whitey?_ Rose rolled her eyes. "The project is stable. We have enough to continue on our own, if necessary. I'll miss the clout...but we are looking at other possible arrangements for the protection of our partners."

"I knew you were sweet on me. Now is there anything I can _do_ for you?" The words were innocuous enough, but they both knew exactly what he meant. 

"What are you asking in return?"

"Blueprints. Maps. Floor plans...whatever you can get of the project building, and of Whitey's place."

She considered it. "That would not be an easy thing to get. _'Whitey,'"_ she mockingly emphasized Treske’s code name, "is not inclined to share information."

"Rose, clever Rose, I have faith in you. You haven't failed me yet." His voice dropped to a confidential whisper. _"And I've never let you down."_

The words sent a shiver through her. No, he certainly had not let her down.

"I'll see what I can get."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](http://subverbaldreams.tumblr.com/fics) for most of my brainspooge, [newtumbl](http://subverbaldreams.newtumbl.com/) for my horny nerdporn that's too hot for tumblr, and[twitter](http://twitter.com/SubverbalD) for cool stuff that I find there. 
> 
> kudos = You aren't throwing your work into the void!  
> Comment = Here is a splash of dopamine! Good golly but you need it. Wow.
> 
> I consume comments like tasty, tasty snacks. I print them out and roll around in them. I know this is rough to read; it was rough to write, but I hope you like it. This story is kinda everything to me.
> 
> Oh, and I found this photo floating around Tumblr. It made me think of the rubber bed Devyn was chained to:  
> 


	10. A Dream--Maybe?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rheven has a dream, and the gears roll into motion.

The rocky edge of the cliff bit into Rheven’s bare feet. Wind from the black chasm below blew so hard that her thigh-length hair kept whipping up into her face. She didn’t remember how she had come to be here, but it felt right. She was just where she was meant to be.

She turned back from the long drop and held her hair away from her face to squint into the darkness. Something was coming; from far behind she heard cries and howls--not of wind, but of monsters. They were coming for her.

The only way to escape was to dive over the precipice into the waiting unknown. Just like her presence here, she couldn’t have said how she knew this. She just _knew,_ the same way she always knew when her brother was hurting.

She was afraid, but it was a distant fear. All of this felt familiar somehow, like it had happened before and she was just now remembering.

Shapes emerged from the darkness behind her, shapes that slowly came clear as they neared. White-skinned creatures, shaped like dogs, but they were huge--Koval’s size at least, with long, slender legs and claw-tipped feet. They were furless, and their skin gleamed. Their eyes were pitted and black, and shone with malice. Their snouts turned down, like bird beaks. She wasn’t even sure they could open, but they looked sharp.

They looked _evil._

Rheven turned back to the ledge. Hesitated, until her skin crawled with the nearness of the things that looked like dogs, but weren’t.

She held her breath and dropped forward.

And she fell.

And fell...

She landed on her feet in an easy crouch, then stood and looked around. She was in a cave. Stalactites speared down from the ceiling with deadly-looking pointed tips. Wails and groans echoed from the walls; she looked around, but couldn’t tell where they were coming from. Rheven turned a slow half-circle and froze.

Enormous green eyes glowed in the darkness behind her, each as big as her hand. The eyes weren't looking at her: they were focused far into the cave behind her. She had heard, somewhere, of dragons. This one was three times taller than she was, with scales like white icicles, with long, claw-tipped wings folded into its sides. It made the whole cave seem smaller simply by its presence. It occurred to her as strange that she wasn't acutely afraid of it. She was cautious, because of its size and power, but she didn't feel like it wanted to hurt her.

"They're almost here."

Her head snapped around. Devyn stood next to her. He was dressed all in black leather, his whole body covered except for his hands and his collarbone, neck, and face. Against all that black, he looked incredibly pale. His expression was distant, and he didn't look her way. He rubbed his hands together, rolling something between them absently. A light. Some kind of blue light with no source, held in her brother’s grip as though it had some kind of substance to it. The light was dim, but it made something in the back of her head pound when she tried to look straight at it. Only then did she notice that, although she could see perfectly, they were in utter darkness.

"Who’s almost here?" she whispered. Her voice bounced back at her from the odd geometry of the ceiling and walls.

"Hounds," a voice murmured from behind her.

She whirled again, this time to see her father's new guard standing on her other side, looking out into the blackness. Short-cropped chestnut hair. Straight nose, sharp jaw. The vest he wore over his dark fatigues held multiple weapons. His belt held knives and incendiaries, and she was sure he’d used every one of them to kill, before. He had a large assault rifle in his hands, pointed into the dark. 

He turned to look at her, eyes blue like merciless winter, but she wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t like the others.

“I won’t let them hurt you,” he said, and she wanted to believe him. She wanted to.

_But this is a dream._

The lucid moment flowed away like flotsam as the wails grew louder and louder, until they vibrated into her brain. They were going to be attacked—and she had no weapon. 

The dread was a well-known companion. It settled through her body, weighing her to the spot. She’d never been able to protect herself, and today was no different.

They first appeared as ghostly blotches from out of the darkness. Cold filled the chamber until Rheven’s teeth were chattering, until she looked down to see frost on her forearms. From multiple tunnels around them, white shapes poured. They looked like dogs, but they weren’t. Their eyes were giant, round pits. Their furless white skin was stretched tight over lean bodies, prominent ribs and whiplike tails. Their faces each ended in a sharp beak instead of a muzzle.

She should have run. Should have asked Master Kenward for a gun. 

But she didn’t. She just stood there.

Master Kenward opened fire, the flash from his gunfire washing his face with light.

Devyn lifted his hands and the blue light burst out from them. The wailing cries peaked into shrieks. Some of them ceased entirely.

Something huge and furred flew over her head. Rheven gasped, dropped to her knees. She caught a flash of brindled haunches as the great beast flew into the dark--Koval, snarling and snapping--and the repulsive pack of hounds backed away from him in a semicircle.

Last of all, the white dragon unfurled. It roared, drowning out every other sound. She looked up at a sound like snapping branches to see its wings opening, stretching to touch either side of the cave. The taut skin between each talon gleamed like oil on snow. 

Both wings snapped inward, and it launched past her. It stopped in midair and zigzagged around, deft as a cobra despite being the size of a mobile home. It had flown into the center of the largest churning mound of darkness and dispersed it like smoke, but the smoke immediately reformed and pulled back inward. It coiled around the dragon's form as if trying to engulf it.

On her knees in the cave, in the midst of the tumult, Rheven was the only one without a weapon.

"Rheven!" she heard, and looked up.

Something massive, something dark and empty, was hurtling toward her. It was dark like pain and fury. It was black like no light had ever existed. The sound of its mad cry was like ice picks drilling through her ears; it rose to a peak that subsumed all other sound, all thought, everything. Rheven screamed as hard as she could, or thought she did; she couldn't hear her own voice. She could vaguely see Devyn, Koval, and Master Kenward running to help her. Behind them, the dragon fought a losing battle with the darkness.

"Rheven!" her brother screamed.

The floor was vibrating beneath her, shaking her teeth in her skull. Cracks began in the walls.

"RHEVEN!" came the cry again, but it was hopeless and she knew it. The emptiness had taken hold of her and was freezing the blood in her veins. It was killing her where she stood.

She opened her mouth. She wanted to say goodbye. She wanted to tell him that she loved him.

There was another series of vibrations and then a clap of thunder. Without looking up, she knew that the razor-tipped, mammoth stalactites had broken from the ceiling and were falling down on her.

 _I am going to die,_ she thought. There was no time for anything else.

"RHEVEN!"

~~~~

It was as odd a tableau as the previous night's, Ransom thought. The kid calling his sister's name had drawn Ransom to the doorway, where he stood unobtrusively watching as the girl twitched and moaned, sprawled out on a large, oval cushion on the floor. He was pretty sure it was an actual dog bed. Her head had slipped off the side and her hair tumbled across the hardwood like black silk. She wore an emerald-green babydoll negligee that made her look like a Victoria's Secret model; it didn’t quite cover her lace-trimmed, green silk panties.

“Rheven!” Devyn beat the floor with his palms, close to her head. 

_Sir, we can’t touch._

Rheven’s eyes flew open. She lashed out with both arms and Devyn threw himself away, falling onto his back on the floor while she surged upright, her hair tangled around her face. Her breasts pushed against the shiny silk with each panting breath, the tops rounding out of it in perfect curves.

A dangerous thing to notice. Or maybe not. Corbin seemed to enjoy showing off his kids.

Devyn sat up. "Ven."

"Vyn," Rheven replied. “Thanks.”

"What was it?" he asked her as she finger-combed hair out of her face. She shivered. 

"Don't know...just a bad dream?" She said it like it was a question.

He pulled his legs up to his chest, rested his chin on his crossed arms and looked into the distance. They sat together in silence.

Ransom backed away from the doorway quietly, leaving the two alone. Again. 

_It bothers you, how they care for each other._

He almost shook his head to get rid of the thought. It wasn't important. He had seen plenty of horrors; he had performed many of them himself, to good and to wicked people alike. It was just part of the job. And kids in situations like these....he knew exactly how they ended up. He was not going to become attached to them.

He descended the stairs, his footsteps clicking dully on the polished wood.

~~~~

Michael had just arrived at the Corbin estate. He'd had about four hours sleep in three days, a fifth of Jack Daniels in the last two hours, and way too many energy drinks. He felt jittery, exhausted, and very slightly nauseous. Every night at the club was a whirlwind. They couldn't keep the traffic moving fast enough. Night after night he saw the same faces, each time more desperate, more hollow, clamoring to be the first in line for Eternity. The blond, preppy kid he'd met months ago in the alleyway had come back, looking sick, and without the money to get in; he'd slipped past the bouncer, instead. Michael had caught him and thrown him out. That look the boy had given him still haunted him. Like Michael had betrayed him. 

It was madness, all of it. He'd seen a man in his thirties fall to his knees and weep like a child when he was told he'd have to come back the next night because the club was full. Men and women wailed like their firstborn had just been taken whenever they were turned away. 

And still Jason wanted him over for his twisted games. 

He trudged up to the door, head hung low. It occurred to him that his posture was similar to Devyn's. The thought was exquisitely depressing. 

_Just get it over with._

The door was opened by the man—Kenward was his name--who often made drug deliveries to the club. It was a shock, but it shouldn’t have been. Jason seemed to have a tight inner clique. Michael avoided his eyes, having no desire to see his reaction to his presence here at the estate. 

_Just get it over with._

The man had a dangerous-looking animal-- _god, is that a dog, or a fucking wolf?_ \--the size of a small horse with him. Michael slipped past the two, trying to appear as inconsequential and non-food-like as possible. The former was probably more successful than the latter. The dog watched, appearing both alert and disinterested as he removed his shoes, while Kenward clicked an intercom and announced his presence. Michael stood against the wall, waiting to be fetched. Those were Jason’s standing orders. He tried not to think about Kenward, who surely knew why he was there. Tears welled in his eyes. He gritted his teeth to push them back.

 _I will not break. I will_ not _break._

Finally, Jason appeared from the white room. 

"Come," he said shortly, then turned and began walking. Michael padded along behind him, feeling Kenward's eyes on him, feeling fire in his throat.

Jason led him to the closed door of the red-sheet sleigh bedroom, then stopped. He just stood at the door, waiting. Michael, avoiding his gaze, opened the door and went in first, then turned and held it for Jason. He just wanted the session to end quickly so he could go home and lie down. It wasn’t submission.

That’s what he told himself.

"Against the wall," Jason said, voice as bored as if he was doing taxes. Michael's resolve to be compliant flew right out the window.

 _I'm not your goddamn dog!_

"You wanna be more specific?" he spat, hatred thickening his words.

Jason's arm was a blur as he backhanded him. Stars popped in front of Michael’s eyes, and his head snapped back. He staggered. Before he regained his bearings, Jason spun him around, twisting one arm up behind him. His thumb was twisted against his wrist so he couldn't break the armlock without breaking his hand. Jason dragged him across the room and threw him into the far wall, between two dangling wrist chains; matching ankle chains rested on the floor below.

"Right there," Jason said in that conversational tone.

Michael whirled to face him once he rebounded off the wall; adrenaline surged through him. He stretched his arm out and flexed his fist. Jason didn't step back. He looked Michael up and down as though assessing his threat level, then smirked and chuckled. 

"Strip, bitch," he said. With that smile.

That little smile.

Whether it was the caffeine or the whiskey, the sleeplessness, or the night of insanity he'd just been through, something in Michael snapped at that smile. Forgetting entirely about the threat of prison which hung over his head, he aimed all the force of his body in a punch toward Jason's teeth. 

He had no idea what happened next. 

He was just suddenly on his back, blackness receding slowly from his vision. His head and his ribs hurt like hellfire; it hurt to breathe, and his ears rang. As his central vision cleared, he saw a boot next to his head...he followed it up, up, and up, and realized Jason was standing over him. 

_I tried to hit him,_ he remembered. _Oh, fuck._

Jason’s knees bent; he lowered like a giant to inspect a fly, his face swimming huge in Michael’s vision. 

"How many fingers?" Jason asked him, holding up three fingers.

"Three," Michael whispered, and winced.

"Now how many?" Jason turned the back of his hand to Michael and lifted just his middle finger.

"One," he breathed. He didn't have it in him to get angry. Nothing mattered at that moment except to keep his skull from splitting open and spilling his brains out onto the floor.

"Where are you?" 

"Your...house." _Ow._

"Why are you on the floor?"

"I...I attacked you."

"Do you think that went well for you?" His voice was so calm. They might have been talking about the weather over drinks.

"No." 

Jason tapped a finger against his knee as he crouched. Michael recognized the posture. Even though he was down, Jason was ready to move in an instant if he still felt like fighting.

He didn't. And, despite all the pain, it felt so good to be horizontal. He just wanted to curl up on the sleigh bed and go to sleep.

Jason reached toward his face. A little sound, a whimper, escaped Michael’s lips. It made the other man smile. The hand stroked his cheek, a gentle caress. It felt nice. 

_I was supposed to be angry..._

_..._ But it was such a relief to have the man stroking him and not hurting him. 

Michael still lifted weights, but he'd been expelled from the dojo two months ago because, after straining everyone's tolerance to the edge with his newfound volatility, he had gone off during a sparring match and broken a man's knee. No one ever touched him anymore except Jason. A part of him had come to crave the man's touch. What frightened him most was that that part of him was becoming more prominent, more ingrained. That part of him wanted to stop fighting, so he could just relax and not get hurt any more. 

But he knew it was an illusory hope, because he'd seen what Jason did to his son.

Jason started to say something else, but a sharp triple-beep sounded from somewhere in the room, three times in a row, and he shot to his feet. He strode toward the door, then stopped like a man remembering his car keys, returned to Michael, and knelt by him, taking his hand. There was a zipping click sound as he closed the ankle cuff onto his wrist. He patted Michael once (well, it was more like a soft slap) on the cheek. 

"Stay," he said. Then he was out the door.

Michael stared at the ceiling. He didn’t know what was going on, but it couldn’t possibly get worse.

~~~~

Ransom ran through the lot from the outer gate, back toward the house. He made it to the front door just as Jason was approaching from within, gun in hand. They met in the doorway.

"What is it?" Jason snapped.

"Intruder. Solo. Saw him jump right over the fence. I set the wolf on him, think he killed it. Took a few shots, but he was gone."

"Where?" 

"Back of the house."

"Show me." 

They ran, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. They crossed paths with the dead body of the guard, Steinmann. 

His throat had been ripped out.

It took several minutes to circle the house. Jason paused intermittently, listening. As they rounded the end of the building, Jason held a hand out, signaling to stop. Ransom looked around him and saw the glint of broken glass on the ground.

In retrospect, Ransom thought, they should have expected it. 

There was a sharp crack and Jason flew to the side, caromed off the building, and fell bonelessly to the ground. Ransom whirled, firing, and there was a scream. Then something hit him like a truck.

He flew for what seemed like forever before he slammed into the ground. He had prepared for the landing and rolled with it. Fortunately he had landed at a wide angle; a direct impact at that velocity could have snapped his spine. He rolled a long way before he was able to stop. Somewhere along the way, he’d lost his gun. He lay on his back, keeping quiet and still. He would have to wait for the wildly spinning ground and sky to settle on a final location before he was going to risk getting up and exposing himself, unarmed, in the darkness.

~~~~

Michael kept his eyes closed as he heard the door open. He had hoped for a longer rest. Footsteps approached him, but much more slowly than Jason's usual purposeful stride. 

_Making me wait for it,_ he thought. _Gloating._

The footsteps stopped next to him and he heard a rustle as Jason knelt.

A hand clapped over his mouth.

Michael's eyes opened, then went wide. It wasn't Jason. It wasn't... _Oh god!_ It wasn't… _couldn’t be_...human. 

His hair was short, spiky, and platinum blond. Against his pure white skin, it seemed a darker blond than it did against the backdrop of the room. He hovered over Michael like an alabaster ghost. His face was lean and foxlike, and his green eyes seemed to contain an inner light. They sparkled with malicious humor as, mouth twisted up in a tight-lipped smile, he lifted a finger to his lips, gesturing for silence. His hand was covered in blood and it left a vertical, crimson stripe across his lips after he lowered it. Michael saw this only from his peripheral vision, because he couldn't stop staring into those green eyes. The man’s white-blond eyelashes looked like delicate bird feathers fanned around the crackling green crystals of his irises. 

Crystalline light played through the jade of his eyes. It was like standing in bright sunlight looking down into clear, moving water. It was alien. It was mesmerizing. In a shared gaze which seemed to last hours and was still too brief, those eyes promised him unimaginable pleasure, pain so hot it would feel like ice, peaks of experience that no human mind could possibly contain.

The man bent over Michael, the hand clamped over his mouth pulling his head to the side. Michael found himself responding to it, arching his neck and his hips upward. He was growing inside his pants. He wanted this. It would be so _good._

A tongue touched his throat, licked it. Lips closed over his pulse. He moaned behind that hand. Whatever was about to happen, it would be the greatest experience of his life.

_Yes!_

But there was an abrupt, choked sound, and the lips and hand were gone from him. He suddenly felt cold and alone. 

_It was a dream, fool. You probably have a concussion_. 

Filled with the ache of loss, he made a disgruntled sound, turned his head, and opened his eyes.

He gasped, and scrambled to his elbows.

The man was there, alright. Other than his pale face and white hands, he was entirely clothed in a green so dark it was nearly black, and soft-looking black boots. He was struggling silently against someone who had an arm wrapped around his throat from behind. Judging by how much it hurt him just to prop himself up, Michael was pretty sure this wasn't a dream. He stared open-mouthed as the jade-eyed man _ran_ straight backward into a wall. There was a "whuff" of expelled breath as the person clinging to his back was slammed into the wall, then the man, freed, spun around to face his attacker. 

It was Devyn.

The white-skinned man lashed out so quickly Michael couldn't even see the movement, he just saw the holes which appeared in the wall around the boy. Devyn, however, was moving at almost the same speed. His dark hair and pale skin, naked except for the small black silk shorts his father dressed him in, left blurs in the air as he dodged each blow. He barely made each dodge; the holes appeared in the wall behind him—almost _directly_ behind him, it seemed, each time he tucked away from the next blow. Michael wondered in his confusion whether everything just appeared to be moving this quickly because of the blow to his head. 

Devyn dropped to a crouch, tried to punch the man’s midsection, but it kept him in one place too long. There was a circular blur as he was caught, raised, and hurled in an arc back down onto the floor, with a loud _BANG_ which knocked the air from his lungs _._ He lay where he fell, on his back, and stared up at the ceiling without focus.

The man knelt and picked up Devyn’s limp form, threw him over his right shoulder. The other shoulder, Michael now saw, was drenched in blood and the cloth of his shirt was ripped, as though he had been stabbed or shot. He ran from the room as if the limp body over his shoulder weighed nothing.

Michael was already in motion, long before his thoughts caught up to the situation. He pulled at the cuff on his wrist. Jason hadn't locked it all the way tight, and anyway, it wasn't meant for the wrist. He spat on it, over and over, then squeezed his thumb inward with his other hand, and shimmied the cuff up and off. His mind was racing the entire time. Where had Jason gone? Had the blond guy killed him? The thought was exhilarating, but it also would mean no one to help him get Devyn back from that....man. Had he really moved that fast? What could he use as a weapon? Would he be fast enough to fight him? 

_Hell, will I be able to stand up without passing out?_

A high-pitched scream had Michael’s head whipping toward the front of the house. It sounded like a girl. 

_The sister._

Michael lurched to his feet and ran toward the white room, toward the scream. The platinum-haired man was at the bottom of the staircase; the sister was halfway up the stairs. It looked like she had been descending, but she'd frozen upon seeing the intruder. Between one blink and the next, the pale man was sharing her space on the middle stair, Devyn still slung limp over his shoulder. The girl lurched back from him with a frightened yelp. 

He grabbed her wrist. The sickening crunch was audible from across the room. She shrieked, falling to her knees. The man turned and began dragging her down the stairs by her broken wrist. He looked up, saw Michael, and grinned viciously.

He had fangs.

The hair on Michael’s arms tried to crawl up his neck and down his spine. Those were real, actual fangs, like a snake. They extended over his bottom teeth, making little dents in his lower lip as he bared them in that creepy, tight-lipped grin. 

Devyn surged back to life. One leg came up and back, and, using the man's grip on his other thigh for leverage, he swung it down in a swift arc, kicking the man squarely between the legs.

The jade eyed man fell backward onto the stairs, a clenched expulsion of air hissing through his teeth. He flung Devyn off him in a violent motion. Devyn tumbled heels over head down the last few steps, then skidded to a stop at the bottom. He was on his feet the second his fall stopped, and ran back up the stairs with a defiant scream. In desperation, Michael grabbed a nearby liquor bottle by the neck, held it like a club, and ran to the foot of the stairs.

The blond man punched at the boy as he came within reach, but Devyn weaved around the blow and hit him hard in the throat with his forearm. 

They both blurred. 

Michael stopped moving. He couldn't even tell which was which from second to second, they moved so fast. 

The girl tried to kick the legs out from under the blond man. As soon as her blow landed, he shifted with it. He whipped out a hand and grabbed her shoulder; he threw her away from him with one arm and immediately turned his focus back on his attacker. 

Devyn's sister did not go tumbling down the stairs as he had done. She was hurled up over the railing and sailed through the open air, slammed into the wall across the room with a deadly _crack,_ and dropped like a stone. She hit the floor like a rag doll twenty feet below and did not move. 

One or the other of the two combatants tripped on the stairs; they fell together in a tangle of limbs down to the very last step. Michael staggered backwards, narrowly avoiding them. 

Devyn rolled on top of the blond man instantly, screaming like a berserker. It was a terrifying sound. His fists pounded down into the man's face, neck, and chest, smashing the life out of him as violently as he could.

The man stopped moving, but that didn’t stop Devyn from demolishing his broken, bloodied face. The fight was over. Michael dropped the bottle he was holding and ran over to the fallen girl, who still had not moved. 

Her eyes were open. Glassy like roadkill. 

_Oh god._ Michael dropped to one knee beside her and felt for her pulse. 

Nothing.

The sound of the boy's screams stopped. Michael glanced up to see that Devyn was watching, but he turned his attention back to the girl. In his peripheral vision, he saw Devyn push off the man’s motionless body and stagger over to fall on his knees beside them. 

Michael couldn't look at him at that moment; he was busy having the world’s calmest panic attack. He didn’t know if her back was broken. He didn’t know if she was bleeding inside. All he knew was that her heart had stopped, and he’d learned CPR over a decade ago and they didn’t have time for an ambulance. 

Arms locked, he counted to thirty as he gave her chest compressions, then checked her breathing. Nothing. He pinched her nose and locked his mouth over hers, pushed air deep into her lungs twice, then returned to the compressions. 

He concentrated on the count. Not on the dead girl flopping beneath his hands. Not on Devyn, who whimpered, "no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no," over and over again in a cracked voice that spiraled right into oblivion.

Another two breaths. Another pulse check. Another cycle of thirty. 

After the second breath into her lungs, she sucked in a breath on her own. 

The girl’s eyelids fluttered, then shut, but she kept breathing. She kept breathing even after Michael quit pummeling her chest. He checked her pulse. It was steady. 

_It was steady._

He exhaled slowly, closing his eyes. The awful knot in his chest began to uncoil, its sharp edges fading into blissful numbness.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no…”

Michael blinked and looked up. 

Devyn's face was covered with streaks of blood. His visible skin between the streaks was a sickly pale hue. His head was tilted down and to the side, as though he couldn't bear to look at his sister directly. He seemed to be in the grip of some kind of shock. He kept saying, "no," over and over again as he knelt, blood-drenched hands gripping the floor.

Michael wanted to go to him, but thought better of it. Devyn had a madness in his eyes, a piano-wire-tight tension in his body, and Michael was unsure what he might do in that moment. He tried to break the boy's trance by speaking instead. 

"Dev? Hey," he snapped his fingers. Once. Twice. 

"Dev! She's gonna be okay. She's alive. See? She's breathing." No response. He waved his hand, trying to break through the boy's locked stare. 

"Hey! She's okay! She's breathing!" he said, louder. "She's alive and okay!" 

At last, the kid's eyes lifted to his face. He stopped saying "no" and took an uneven breath. His mouth quivered as if to speak. His eyes were desperate. Pleading.

"She's okay," Michael kept saying, putting as much reassurance as he could into his voice, his words. "She's alive. She's okay." Devyn seemed to be afraid to believe it, or maybe he was having a hard time coming back mentally from the place her brief death had sent him. 

A swishing sound of cloth brought Michael's head snapping up. A fresh surge of adrenaline poured through his exhausted body, but he quickly froze. It was the guard who had let him in earlier, Kenward. He had arrived silently through the front door and come around the corner in a swift motion. His gun was aimed directly at Michael. The man's eyes swept over the room, taking in the two of them hunched over the unconscious girl. As soon as he saw the sprawled, bloody form at the foot of the stairs, he was in motion again, stalking toward it with his gun aimed at its midsection.

Jason came in after him. He was favoring one side, and there was a very wide raised lump on his right temple, partly hidden by his hair. It was already deep purple. The bruise flowed around to his eye and shadowed his eyelids with black on the one side. Red flecks had blossomed on the outer white of his eye. A surge of vindictive pleasure gripped Michael’s chest. He hoped it _hurt._

Jason looked down at the bloodied pulp of the creature's face. Then his eyes lifted and took in the trio huddled together, flicking to his blood-covered son and back to the creature. "Bring me the heavy green container from under the bed in the master suite," he ordered the guard. Jason stood like a statue, his gun aimed at the limp form, until Kenward returned lugging a long, metal box on wheels. Following Jason's verbal instructions, he lifted a pair of heavy-looking manacles attached to equally heavy chains from the container and used them to bind the fallen man’s ankles. Michael had thought he might be dead, but apparently not. He was a little relieved. If he was alive, it meant Devyn had not just committed murder with his bare hands. He glanced at the boy, but Devyn seemed oblivious to the movement around him.

As soon as the man’s wrists and ankles were secured in the thick manacles, Jason ordered, "Drag him to the basement. I'll follow behind and shoot him if he moves." 

Kenward took the longest chain, the one connected to the ankle cuffs, and used it to drag the man of the room. Jason followed, gun in hand.

Once they had cleared the room, the sandbags fell back onto Michael's shoulders. He slumped and sighed deeply, then looked up at Devyn. The boy was gazing down at his sister, watching her chest move, watching her breathe. The mad light had left his eyes; he just looked bone weary. Michael stood up slowly (his body chose that moment to remind him how much his ribs and skull still hurt) and walked around to the boy, knelt beside him and put an arm around his shoulders in a half-hug.

Devyn's shoulder tightened inward at the contact; he made a little choking sound and tears spilled from both eyes, tracking pale lines through the blood on his face. 

"She's gonna be okay," Michael murmured. 

He was about to let go, when Devyn released a sob and leaned his head sideways onto Michael's shoulder. Looking down at him, he seemed so fragile, shaking with quiet tears under Michael's big arm. A wall in Michael's chest crumbled upon seeing him that way--young, frightened, vulnerable. He reached up with his opposite hand to wipe the blood and tears from Devyn's face; he put his cheek against the boy's head and rubbed his back. He was so fucking tired.

But Devyn needed him.

The sound of footsteps broke the bubble. They snapped apart. Jason was stalking toward them in long, rapid strides from the hallway. He still held the gun. 

Michael took one look at his expression and knew he had seen. He scrambled to his feet and backed up, hands out in front of him. 

"It's not what you think--" he began. 

"Sir--" he heard Devyn say.

But Jason was right in front of him, and the butt of his gun blurred around toward Michael's face.

Then there was nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ask me all the things on [tumblr](http://subverbaldreams.tumblr.com/fics), [newtumbl](http://subverbaldreams.newtumbl.com/), or [twitter](http://twitter.com/SubverbalD). 
> 
> **Kudos make me happy!  
> **  
>  Comments make my brain e x p l o d e with happy! I love to know what you're thinking.
> 
> OH! And here, for the first time since I wrote this bloody story (in 2013!) is a likeness of the hounds from Rheven's..."dream"...  
> Drawn by an incredible fan and friend who wants to stay sneakily behind the scenes, the scamp! 


	11. Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AFK tomorrow so posting this a day early. Enjoy!

Ransom reentered the white room just in time to see Corbin pistol-whip the club manager. Jacobs' head snapped back and he dropped like a sack of bricks. Corbin's son was on his knees, babbling something. From the sound of it, trying to explain what had happened. He wasn't making a whole lot of sense. 

"Sir, she--we were fighting it and I fell but so did she and I don't know what happened then Sir but she wasn't breathing--" 

Ransom took in the still form of the girl as her brother continued his nonsensical ramble. She was unconscious, but she _was_ breathing. Her little nightie was torn, and a dark bruise discolored the middle of her chest. Her right wrist was completely circled in black, and had swelled up like a rotten melon. Broken bones, for sure.

" _Stop_ ," Corbin commanded.

The boy shut his mouth in the middle of a word. 

"Get up." 

Devyn obeyed, pushing himself up with some apparent difficulty to stand on wobbling legs. Corbin looked him up and down, assessing the damage. Apparently he didn't find it too serious. 

"Kenward," he said.

"Sir."

"Take _this,"_ he sneered at Jacobs’ limp form, "to the basement. Boy," he turned his attention back to his son, "you show Master Kenward to the cage in the center basement, the one close to the hose. Take Jacobs' clothes off and lock him in. Once you're done, you both come back to me."

"Sir, yes, Sir," Devyn replied. 

"Yes, Mr. Corbin," Ransom said. 

Corbin produced a cell phone and began making calls while Kenward hefted the unconscious man over one shoulder-- _damn, he's heavy_ \--and followed the kid back down the hallway. Devyn staggered a couple times; he touched the wall to keep from falling over, leaving red prints on it. His front and arms were blood-splattered, and he was painted with bruises. His hands were both entirely covered with blood, and Kenward took one guess at what had happened to the blond man’s pulped face. Jacobs, by comparison, looked perfectly unharmed, except for having been knocked out by Corbin. Ransom studied Devyn’s broad shoulders as he limped down the basement steps, bracing his weight against the wall. 

_The goddamned thing threw me halfway across the lot, and the kid took it down himself, without a weapon in sight._

Eyes on the ground, Devyn led him deep into the basement until they reached a steel grate, like a sewer grating that ran all along one edge of the enclave. Pipes snaked across the wall, and a hose with a high pressure spray nozzle lay coiled under one of them. A couple yards away was the cage, bolted the floor beneath two rows of bright fluorescent lights. 

It took the kid a while to open the cage’s door mechanism. Broken knuckles, like as not; his fingers stayed curled in half-fists. Ransom dumped Jacobs' heavy weight with a grunt and waited. He stood back while the kid worked to get Jacobs’ shirt, pants, and briefs off—and folded them into a neat pile in a far corner, away from the hose and up off the ground. It was a pointless act, especially now that the clothing was covered in bloody handprints. 

It took both of them to shove the limp giant into the cage. The top of the cage came up to Ransom’s waist; its width was about the same. It was barely long enough for Jacobs to lie on his side with his legs tucked up. He wouldn't be able to lie flat. 

Once they got him in, Devyn worked a minute longer to arrange him so he wasn't twisted over one arm. He turned Jacobs’ head so his neck was straight, and tucked his legs carefully over one another. 

Interesting. 

Devyn closed the door when he was finished, and locked it with a padlock which hung on one of the cage bars. The way the cage had been built, even if the cell occupant had the key, the lock couldn't be reached from within. All the bars were too close together for someone with Jacobs' stature to get his whole arm through, and the ones near the latch were closer still. Devyn padded to the wall and hung the key on a loop, within direct view of the cage. 

_A nice little bit of torture, that._

Devyn turned and stared at Jacobs for several breaths, expressionless as a mannequin. Then he glanced at Ransom and nodded. 

"Sir," he said.

"Lead the way.” 

~~~~

Once upstairs, Devyn found himself surrounded by a whirl of activity. Master Shaw had arrived, out of uniform. Other men he didn’t know moved about purposefully. Devyn's father caught sight of them, and directed Master Kenward to go help "load up" Steinmann. 

“Load up.” Was Master Steinmann dead? 

_I hope he is._

Devyn clamped down on that thought guiltily, as though it might be somehow heard and held against him. He hated Master Steinmann, because of the things he did to Rheven. Plus he _reeked._ It made Devyn gag when he had to suck him off. 

Unease twisted in Devyn’s guts as his father’s hand landed on his shoulder. These were dangerous thoughts. He had to fix his thinking before Daddy noticed.

His father pulled him into a quiet room and stood over him, a looming shadow in the dim light. 

"Start from when you saw the man with the white skin," he said, "and tell me what happened."

Devyn did, as best he could. He had looked over the balcony when he heard the glass break after the alarm, and had seen an unescorted stranger enter the hallway. He followed because it didn't feel right, and saw the man (this was where he began to falter) bending over Mr. Jacobs.

"He felt wrong, Sir," he tried to explain. "From the doorway, I couldn't see his face, but something was around him--I mean, not _around_ him, it just--it wasn't right. I think he was gonna kill Mr. Jacobs, or hurt him."

Daddy circled his wrist in an impatient gesture. Devyn hurried to tell how he had pulled the man off and described the ensuing fight, Rheven's injury, and falling to the foot of the stairs locked in combat.

"I kept hitting him, til he stopped, then Rheven--" he stumbled on the words, tried to hide from the memory even as he told it. "--Mr. Jacobs was doing, like, pushing on her chest. I went over and she had her eyes open but she was...she was gone..." 

_Don't see it. Don't see it._

Flashes of memory jumped out at him, too vivid to be ignored. Her black arm. Empty eyes. His very worst nightmare made real. Her precious light was gone, he had been too slow, and now he was completely alone...

A loud pop startled Devyn out of the vision. His father had snapped his fingers right under Devyn’s nose.

The story—right. He was supposed to be telling the story.

"Sir, he, uh, he breathed in her mouth and moved her chest and then she started breathing. He brought her back...he brought her back..." 

He was trying. He really was. But his voice drifted off, his eyes fell shut and tears spilled down his cheeks. He was so tired. Everything felt very far away. 

Daddy’s hand fell heavy over the back of his neck, curled around it like half of a collar. Where that hand pushed, Devyn went. 

_It's over. Daddy will take care of it now._ The thought was as comforting as a thick, warm blanket. He wrapped up in it and went where his father led him.

He was taken to the dark room. He and Rheven called it that because it had no windows. It was a panic room hidden behind a mirror in the gym. It was large enough for about ten people and the steel door behind the mirror had several locks and bolts. Inside the room was Rheven, lying still on a small, wheeled hospital bed. One arm was braced and wrapped. Seeing her there made him want to cry with relief. It hadn't been a dream; she really was still alive.

A man in his mid-fifties, slender, with salt-and-pepper short hair, sat beside her. Dr. Lee, his father's medical man, was looking at a tablet screen attached to some kind of device which in turn was attached to Rheven's chest by several wires ending in little white squares of plastic. He looked like he had just got out of bed and rushed over by the rumpled quality of his sweater and slacks over tennis shoes. He glanced up as they entered.

"Status?" his father asked.

"Looking good," Dr. Lee said, standing. "Whoever gave her CPR," he gestured at the bruise on her chest, "saved her life. I've set her arm; you'll want to keep the ice packs fresh for the next couple of days. To be safe, don't leave her alone. I'll have this tablet set up and it will beep if there's any issue with her heart."

Jason looked at his sleeping daughter, then back at the physician. "Fine. Take care of him." He moved so that Devyn became visible. Dr. Lee pushed his glasses up his nose and surveyed him, eyebrows raising with interest. Daddy nodded to the doctor and left. A second later the new guard, Master Kenward, came in and went to stand by the bed.

Dr. Lee took his bag and followed Devyn to the bathroom in his father's room. It was a room nearly the size of the bedroom itself, with steps leading up to the bathing pool. Set into the marble floor, it was deep enough to stand in when it was full. Devyn peeled off his blood-soaked shorts and climbed in. He turned on the water, but let it drain continually.

He had trouble cleaning himself, but Dr. Lee helped. His hands were long and soft, uncalloused, and they found their way all over his body. Devyn didn't mind being with Dr. Lee too much. He could be nasty, sarcastic, but never hurt him physically. He didn't have to be tense with him in expectation of being hit.

Dr. Lee didn't bother trying to find out what had happened. He knew Devyn's father enough to know what was his business and what wasn't. He just asked questions like, "What made that mark?" on his back and, "What did you hit?" while examining his knuckles. He was satisfied with the answers, "the stairs," and, "a face."

Devyn stared in morbid fascination as the stinging, running water removed the blood from his hands. The flesh was sliced and skinned from most of his knuckles; it looked like the bone of the middle knuckle was exposed on both hands, and they were swollen so badly he could barely twitch his fingers anymore. 

Once he was clean and dried, the doctor sat him down on the top step of the tub and gave him several injections, covered his hands with a gel which made the stinging worse, then he wrapped each hand in bandages from knuckles to wrist. The pain was a low thrum through his body now; he had gone over the threshold to that nice place where it didn't hurt much anymore. The doctor's warm, soft hands smoothed that gel over his chest, and he was growing hard at the man's touch, even as he struggled to stay awake.

"Just lie down," the doctor said, and he did, lying back onto the towel behind him with his feet resting on the second step below him. Dr. Lee continued rubbing that stinging balm over the cuts on his chest, and on some cuts on his legs he hadn't realized were there until the doctor touched them. The sting felt dull now, more like a pulsing warmth. It felt good now. 

He heard himself moan from far away when a slick, warm hand closed over his cock. It stroked and tugged until he was fully hard, then Dr. Lee knelt between his open legs and pulled him down so his ass hung over the top step of the tub.

Dr. Lee was quick about it. He rubbed his hard dick up and down Devyn's crack to smear the lube around, then thrust in abruptly. Devyn gasped. The familiar ache bloomed instantly into a warm fire in his belly. The sex felt good after all the pain and fear. Devyn moaned softly with the thrusts as they sped up, until the doctor gasped, pulled out, and groaned. After his orgasm ended, Dr. Lee took a deep breath and blew it out in a satisfied sigh. 

"Consider that gratuity," he said, tucking his shirt back in, "for getting up this goddamn early. Don't tell your dad I fucked your ass."

"I won't, sir," Devyn muttered. _One of the shots must have been for the pain,_ he thought; he felt drugged. But he was grateful for it. 

Dr. Lee let Devyn rest while he cleaned up the mess. He was nice like that, sometimes. He pulled a clean pair of shorts over Devyn's hips and his softening cock, then pulled him to his feet. Holding him up as they walked, he returned him to the dark room. 

**

Ransom looked up as the door opened, then relaxed upon seeing the kid with the doctor. He did notice something off, though, and studied them both until he was able to pinpoint what that glowy look was on the good doctor's face, and the way he kept unnecessarily touching the boy. Apparently Corbin got a lot of business done by letting people fuck his children. Ransom kept his jaw from clenching as the doctor explained how to read the tablet display and then left the three of them.

 _It's just been a rough night. Your adrenaline is still going,_ Ransom thought, countering his urge to hurt the good doctor just for pleasure. He had thought dragging Steinmann’s stinking corpse to the van had been icing on the cake, but this sleazy prick using the kid after all that had happened to him that night nearly trumped it. He was pretty impressed with the way the kid had handled himself _,_ not just taking the intruder down, but holding it together afterward. 

Devyn leaned against the bed, face slack with exhaustion, half-lidded eyes locked on his sleeping sister. He stood there for a minute, swaying on his feet. Then, still gripping the bed with his bandaged hands, he staggered to the foot of it and sagged against the wall, sliding down it to the floor. He slumped to the side and almost instantly started to breathe the deep, slow breaths of heavy sleep.

~~~~

Michael woke slowly. The first thing he became aware of was pain. He had a splitting headache, the worst he had ever had. He lay for a while and contemplated whether he should get up to vomit or just do it lying down.

The second real thought was that he didn't remember drinking much the night before--not enough to warrant pain of this magnitude. Thinking of the night before…

_Jason’s arm blurring toward his face_

Was that a memory?

_Something bad happened. Something very, very bad._

He decided he should open his eyes.

While he traversed the long stretch between decision and implementation, he became aware that he was lying on concrete. There was no sound, except for the occasional drip like a leaky faucet, reminding him that he had to go to the bathroom. It was cold. It shouldn't feel so cold. Only after he thought this, did he realize he could feel the cold down his entire body. 

_What--am I naked?_

He managed to crack his eyelids open.

Bars. He was looking at bars. They were very close to his face. He turned his eyes up, then down, and to the side. Empty room, bars. He focused on the far wall. A key dangled from a hook, over some pipes. 

_This is...not good._

It was the best he could muster. He was beginning to suspect where he was, yet he still felt weirdly calm. The pain in his head thumped loud and hard, shooting down his back in a humming line of fire.

He lay there for an indeterminable amount of time, drifting in and out. Somewhere along the line, well after he had begun to feel acutely cold and started to shiver, fear crept into him. It grew monumental as he lay there, his thoughts coalescing into something sensible, until finally he realized he had to move. He had an overwhelming sense that he was locked up somewhere, and the fear was outgrowing the pain of getting up and finding out for sure.

Movement was agony. It took him a subjective eternity to pull himself into a sitting position. His hand found bars over his head as he rose; he used them, and the ones to his side, to lever himself up. He leaned against the cold metal and sat breathing carefully for awhile, until he felt able to open his eyes again.

He was in a cage. In a cage in a large, vaguely familiar room. Naked.

 _I'm in_...

_Jason's basement._

The fear became terror almost instantaneously with that realization. He was caged, naked, somewhere in the massive torture complex of a sadistic drug lord he had pissed off. No one knew he was here. He didn't have any close friends; he was estranged from his family. No one would come looking for him. As all these thoughts piled on top of one another, his breath and heart rate sped up; only the agonizing pain in his skull, worsened by the rise in blood pressure, prevented him from flying into a full blown panic. 

Jason knew he wouldn't be missed or sought. Michael had revealed his personal situation back when they had been dating. Jason had been so intrigued about every aspect of his life, had wanted to know everything about him. The fucking bastard had stroked his ego so hard, made him feel so wanted, so eager to share himself. He had been a poster-child for naïve idiocy. 

Though he knew it was useless, he inched over to the cage's gate and tried it. Of course, it did not open. He looked back to the key dangling from the wall. 

_You twisted fucker. You sick bastard._

He leaned his pounding, hot forehead against the cold metal bars and closed his eyes. 

There was nothing to do but wait.

~~~~

Ransom watched the girl as she slept. Without Corbin around, he felt comfortable doing so. There was really nothing else to do in the windowless room, and she was damn nice to look at. He had been surprised to realize she wasn't as frail as he had first thought; she had an hourglass figure but her shoulders and arms had lean muscle beneath that smooth skin. He studied the catlike curve of her cheeks, the slow curl of her long, black eyelashes, the fascinating plumpness of her pink lips. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed, and his eyes were drawn to her breasts over and over. He had ages to find a flaw as he examined her from his seat by the bed, but there was none. She was absolutely the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen.

_Except she's not a woman. Not yet._

There was that. 

He didn't consider himself against morality, so much as that he was not really affiliated with it one way or the other. Morally agnostic. He knew loads of guys, pretty much everyone he knew, as a matter of fact, who would love to be where he was, able to have as much use of this lovely girl (and for many of them, her brother as well) as he cared to. 

He had never lusted after underage girls, though. He'd had plenty of opportunity, and plenty of willing and eager candidates. It just wasn't his thing. He wanted a woman who was old enough, experienced enough, to know what she was doing, and why. This one...wasn't. She'd probably been with a good number of men by now, judging by the way Corbin and Shaw had talked, but she still seemed...innocent. She might know what she was supposed to do, but she didn't understand it. She was just doing what her father told her to do. Following orders.

He looked at his hands, at the gun resting on his knee. He had followed orders in the military, when he was just a little older than she was now. He hadn't known jack shit then. He'd learned quickly, though. He'd learned how to be unafraid, how to kill without caring, and how to follow orders. That was what the military gave to him. A career path to follow. 

He was very, very good at killing. It was his strongest skill. So, he had found ways to do what he was best at, and get paid. A lot. Win-win situation. 

_How many has it been?_ He knew men who liked to keep a tally. He hadn't bothered. He didn't feel a need to boost his ego by grading himself against other killers. He remembered a string of faces, situations, that all blurred together. A sniper hit outside Chicago during winter. Breaking into that politician's three-story house and strangling him with his blue and green striped tie. He remembered the tie vividly, but not the man's face. 

He had spent six months working as muscle and hitman for a Los Angeles kingpin; that job had involved a lot of murder and mayhem. He had avoided the torture, though. And the rape. Again, it just wasn't his thing. And then Searcy, one of the kingpin's enforcers with whom he had spent a lot of time working in L.A., had said something to him, something that made him decide to leave, all those years ago.

 _"You don't belong here,"_ the girl on the bed whispered, and Ransom almost jumped to his feet. Her eyebrows were drawn together, but her eyes were still closed. She made a wordless sound of protest. Then her face went slack, and she was back in deep sleep. 

Goosebumps rose on his arms as Ransom stared at her, shaken. 

_You don't belong here._

Yeah. That was it.

Yet here he was.

_**_

Corbin relieved him of watchdog duty around four in the morning. He went to a club he visited occasionally to unwind, and found himself in his apartment not long thereafter in the company of a stunning brunette who called herself Diamond. She had caught his attention at the bar by demonstrating, mostly to him, but also just sort of in general, her ability to twist cherry stems into knots with her tongue. She could do several at a time.

He sat on the edge of the bed with Diamond straddling him, grinding him, their mouths locked, tongues entwined. Her tight, stretchy dress was easy to pull up and off. Once rid of it he sucked her breasts through her red lace bra, slid his hands under the red garter belts holding up her lacy, thigh-high stockings, grabbed her ass, and ground her against his still-clothed crotch. She made small noises and pulled his shirt off over his head. He ran his hands roughly all over her, feeling her slender figure, her frame so small in his big hands. It would be so easy to break her bones, if he wanted to.

An image flashed in his mind of Corbin's girl, with her swollen black wrist and the bruise between her breasts from the chest compressions. Delicate as a little flower, she had seemed. So small and fragile. The way she had tiptoed around him in the “training room,” to see to her brother. He almost smiled, thinking of her cute demonstration of the pressure point in her foot. And the way her lips glistened from the water she had drunk...the way her face lifted when she saw the big, scary wolf which she treated like a teddy bear (he wondered if she knew yet that the wolf was dead)...the rest of the time, her eyes were so sad…

"Come on, tiger," Diamond purred, and nipped at his neck. He realized he had loosened his bruising grip on her and was stroking her, cradling her curves; he was kissing her lips gently, rather than pushing his tongue into her throat. He opened his eyes to see heated, knowing chocolate brown rather than wide, sorrowful blue and gold looking back at him. 

"Come on," she said again, wiggling her hips, "ride me _hard."_

He did.

~~~~

Rose Taylor checked her phone as it buzzed on silent mode. She had one text message with two images attached. She opened the message and read: 

_Chocolate cream or cherry vanilla? Choose your flavor._

The first image was a photograph of a nude, handsome, muscular man with medium-length brown hair and a sexy full-arm tattoo, lying in a cage, apparently unconscious. She didn't know him, but then, she hadn't given her contact any names lately; this one was apparently a bonus. She quirked her mouth in a small, approving smile. 

_You never do disappoint me._

She swiped to the second picture, then gasped and sat up straight in her chair.

This figure was also nude. He was secured with heavy manacles to a tilt-table which was made of several thick inches of metal. The feet were raised, the head down. It looked like a pneumatic mechanism pushing the foot-end up from the metal slab beneath the table. Thin, metallic cords wrapped all over the man’s body, lacing through holes in the table. They held him immobilized from head to foot, his arms and legs apart. As a final touch, the man's lower face was enclosed in a sturdy, metal cage. A human muzzle. 

His whole face was covered in blood, but his hair was platinum blond, and the rest of his skin was pure white.

"Oh, Jason," she breathed. "You are a dead man."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me what you think!!


	12. Illustration - Commissioned *NSFW* Michael x Jason!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **NSFW** Unbelievable, incredible, FUCKING HOT AS HELL artwork commissioned from Blush-Incarnate, I can't get over this!!!  
> *  
> Michael Jacobs x Jason Corbin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, guys, jump on Blush's twitter or tumblr and let them know how amazing this is!!

Commissioned from Blush-Incarnate, who is available through **[Tumblr](http://blush-incarnate.tumblr.com/)** and **[Twitter](http://twitter.com/BlushIncarnate)**. They were a joy to work with. Can I just point out how FUCKING PERFECT this is? Holy hell, I need a cold shower. Or maybe an excessively long, hot shower. <.<

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, hi, I'm still yelling. Holy FUCK! Michael's TATTOO!!!! It's everything I couldn't quite picture in my imagination! And just yes HELLO that is a very nice cock you have there, sir. OK but the chest hair? The dominating position? The EXPRESSIONS! The HAIR!!! The MUSCLES!??!1?/? The little blush on Michael's cheeks?? I'm...just. Ajsldkjf. ffffUCK!


	13. Alone, Below

Footsteps. 

Michael sat up straight and turned so he would be facing whoever was approaching. Jason rounded the corner, wearing black leather boots, black leather pants—and nothing else. In one hand he held a duffel bag by its strap, and a metal rod. The rod was about two feet long: it had a forked prong on one end, and some kind of box on the other end. 

Michael forced himself not to hug his legs to his chest as the man approached the cage. He wanted to hide his nudity, but Jason wanted him to feel vulnerable and he wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. The man came right up to the bars, set down the bag, and squatted on his heels. He left one hand resting on the top corner of the cage.

"Put your arm through the bars," he said without preamble.

"Fuck you," Michael snarled.

Jason thrust the forked tip of the metal rod through the bars and into Michael's shoulder. Sudden, paralyzing agony clenched all the muscles in his side. It knocked out his breath for a few long seconds, until they all released at once.

He screamed. He scrambled back as far away as he could get, which was just to the other end of the short cage, and not at all out of reach of that rod.

"Put your arm through the bars," Jason repeated.

"Okay! Okay." Michael pushed his left arm through until it stopped just above the elbow. He had no doubt that Jason would do the electrocute-and-order routine until he gave in or passed out, at which point he could just pull his arm through the bars anyway. He had to save his strength for something less futile. 

_ Like what?  _ To that, he had no answer.

Jason caught his wrist and pulled a large needle out of the bag beside him. Michael clenched his teeth, vividly flashing back to the night Jason had injected his son with that sedative before putting him in the coffin. The next item out of the bag, however, was a plastic bag attached to a length of tube.

"Hold still," Jason said. He met Michael's eyes, checking for signs of resistance, he supposed, then clamped one hand over his inner arm, just above the elbow, until the vein popped out. He jabbed the huge needle into it. Michael swallowed the bile that rushed up the back of his throat. He wasn't normally needle shy. These, however, were not remotely close to normal circumstances.

Jason pulled up the end of the tubing, uncapped the end and inserted it into the open back of the needle in Michael's arm. He maneuvered it until blood spurted into the tube and began flowing down into the bag. Michael watched it all motionlessly.

Once the blood draw was in progress, Jason stood. "I'll be back soon. Don't fuck with the bag. Don't take the needle out. Do you understand?"

"Yes." His throat barely opened to let out the word. With barely another glance, Jason stood and began to walk away.

_ "Jason!"  _ An edge of panic crept into his voice despite himself.

_ Keep calm. No point losing it. Save your strength.  _

( _ For what?  _ came that annoying inner voice again. He told it to shut the hell up.)

Jason turned back to him. "What."

Those gray eyes burned back at him, intense and hungry, without any kind of pity or reason. The malevolence of his torturer's visage was magnified tenfold in Michael's mind by his utter helplessness. It was so disturbing that he had to work against his instinct to maintain eye contact, not to avert his gaze like the slave Jason wanted him to be. 

"I want out. Let me out. I'll go back to work and this never happened." He wouldn't beg, refused to beg, but he didn't demand either. He just stated his case in a flat, empty tone.

Jason's eyelids lowered and his mouth softened. It was that satisfied expression Michael hated so much, that look that said he had just done exactly what the man wanted.

"You'll get out, little kitten," he said in a soothing voice, like a man comforting a small child. "When you've learned your place."

Then he turned away and disappeared around the corner. 

  
  


~~~~

Ransom noted several new guards when he arrived at the Corbin estate that evening. He entered past a guard holding a submachine gun and found Corbin in the white room, speaking with a man that put the rest of the crew to shame. He was huge, several inches taller than Corbin, which was putting him close to seven feet tall. He was ripped and imposing: a Bengal tiger in black fatigues. His striking steel-colored hair was pulled into a tight ponytail at the back of his neck that ran down to his mid-back. As Ransom approached them, the man turned his head and they made eye contact. 

He instantly filed this new character into his "Do-Not-Cross" list.

The man's age was difficult to tell. If he had to guess he would say over thirty but under sixty. His hair wasn't gray like he was old. It looked like it had always been that color. His face was barely lined, but that didn't mean he was young, because Ransom was guessing his expression never changed much. His face was striking. Wolfish, with a defined jaw shadowed with silver stubble. 

But it was the eyes, more than anything else, which set him apart. They were metallic silver: the reflection off a steel rod in bright sunlight. They barely looked human.

And they were empty. Alert, but empty. Ransom knew in his gut that the man was a killer, not because he enjoyed it, or was good at it, or because some horror in his past had driven him to it. It was just what he  _ was,  _ the way the sun  _ is  _ the sun, or a mountain  _ is  _ a mountain. This man brought death.

"Kenward," Corbin greeted him. The bruise over his temple had turned black but the swelling was not as bad as he had expected. His eye was lined in black as if he'd done it with thick eyeliner and the flecks of red blood in the white of his eye stood out sharply in contrast between the black eyelids and the gray iris. "Guard duty in the room behind the gym. When you get there, send Shaw to me. Tell the boy to clean Jacobs' cage."

He nodded. "Yes, sir." He felt the weight of the metallic-eyed man's attention as he passed them into the hallway. It was a relief when the line of sight was broken. 

_ Corbin has some interesting friends.  _

_ And enemies.  _

He was met with a disconcerting spectacle as the door swished open to his electronic key. Nate Shaw stood leaning against the wall by the foot of the bed. His face was twisted up in concentration, his head turned toward the girl in the bed. His body faced the door; he had a gun in his hand with his finger over the trigger guard, ready to shift into a shooting position. However, the gun was currently resting on the shoulder of Corbin's son, who knelt facing him, his hands cuffed behind his back in Shaw's police handcuffs. Shaw's other hand had a tight grip in the kneeling kid's hair.

Corbin's daughter was still lying down, but she was awake. Her eyes were turned toward the wall. Her nightie was pulled down just under her breasts, revealing her small pink nipples, and her legs were spread, panties pulled to the side, exposing her to Shaw's lustful gaze.

Shaw nodded at Ransom as he entered. 

"Just be a minute," he said tightly. 

Devyn made a retching sound and fought to pull backward, but he tightened his fist in the boy's hair and shoved his head back down. 

"Stay down, cocksucker," he growled. “I didn’t say you could breathe.”

"Corbin wants you," Ransom interjected. "And he wants the boy to go clean Jacobs' cage."

Shaw cursed. He yanked Devyn off his erection, swung him around by the grip in his hair, and gave him a shove. The boy turned his face to the side just before he hit the ground. He landed on his shoulder with a grunt, and sucked in ragged breaths punctuated by coughs. Shaw stuffed himself back into his pants, then leaned down and removed the cuffs from the boy's wrists. 

"Next time, you suck  _ harder, _ slut." He slapped the boy across the head, got up, and delivered a negligent kick to his exposed stomach. Devyn's breath huffed out with the blow, but he didn’t try to protect himself.

"Sir, yes, sir," he grunted.

Shaw turned to Ransom and swept an expansive arm toward the bed. 

"Have a blast. Can't do much with her right now, but you can see her heartbeat speed up on that screen when you finger her." 

Shaw chuckled, almost masking a faint popping sound. Looking down, Ransom caught the ripple of muscle in Devyn’s jaw as he ground his teeth together. Just for a second, a murderous rage flashed across the boy’s eyes while he glared at Shaw.

But then it was gone, and those blue and gold eyes returned to their customary blankness. The muscles in his face smoothed out again as he disappeared into himself. Shaw brushed past Ransom and left the room, completely clueless.

Devyn pushed himself to his feet. His lower lip, which had been split open in the fight the night before, was bleeding again. He looked exhausted. He kept his eyes fixed on the direct opposite end of the room from his exposed sister, and tilted his head down so his hair fell back over his face.

"Jacobs' cage," Ransom reminded him. "Basement. Corbin wants you to go clean it."

"Sir, yes, sir." His voice was dead flat. He left the room without looking at Ransom or the girl.

Ransom approached the bed. Rheven hadn't moved or tried to cover herself. Her eyes remained fixed on the wall, her expression flat, but she was definitely conscious. He reached toward her and her eyes flicked in his direction, then quickly back to the wall.

He lifted the silk nightie back up over her breasts, covering them. From the corner of his vision, he noticed that on the monitor he really could see her heartbeat speed up as he touched her. He carefully pulled her panties back over her and brought her legs together. He tucked the sheet up over her, covering her up to the collarbone, then sat in the chair by the bed and faced the door.

They sat together in silence.

~~~~

Michael had curled into a shivering ball since being left alone again.

Jason had come back after a while and removed the full bag of blood, and the tube. He didn’t sterilize anything, which just added to the pool of nauseous dread in Michael’s gut. 

As Jason was leaving, Michael asked for water. Jason disappeared around the corner for a couple of minutes. He returned with a small plastic water bottle and set it down next to the cage, squatted to meet Michael's eyes and gave him that secretive smirk. 

"Drink up." 

Then he left.

Michael eyed the water bottle suspiciously as he picked it up. It was warm. And when he twisted off the cap, he found the seal already broken. He sniffed the liquid inside.

It was piss.

He wasn't sure how long ago that had been. He was too anxious to sleep. Time stretched out into forever as he shuffled around inside the cage, checking the sturdiness of every single bar. The need to relieve himself got worse and worse, until finally he peed through the bars toward the sewerlike grating. It was a while before another bodily function became impossible to ignore. There was nothing to do but squat as far to one side of the cage as possible, then lie with his head at the other end, trying not to breathe in the smell.

Movement flashed in the corner of his eye, and Michael jerked his head up. It was Devyn. He hadn't heard him coming in, barefoot. He was carrying a bucket and mop.

"Dev," Michael croaked. His mouth was parched. He sat up and gripped the bars. "Dev. I need your help. I need the key to this cage. Please." His voice was low and even, a talking-to-the-crazy-person voice. Why should he even be surprised Devyn was here? He flashed back to an image of the boy shaking under his arm. Leaning into him for support. Was there anyone behind that wall of black hair that he could talk to?

The boy set down the bucket by the far corner of the cage. He didn't look in Michael's direction at all. Michael saw, now that he was nearer, that his hands were bandaged from second knuckle to mid-forearm and his movements were stiff. The boy went over to the hose coiled by the wall and pulled it around to the long end of the cage opposite the sewer grating. 

"Cover your face, please, sir." His voice was raspy, a reminder of those wild screams while he’d beaten the white-skinned man's face in. 

Michael had been covered in bloody handprints when he had woken in the cage. Devyn had to have been here, at least at some point. Jason must have had him doing the grunt work, just like he was doing now.

Devyn pushed the handle on the pressure hose and water shot out in a jet, flushing the feces out of the cage and across the floor. Mist ghosted over Michael, taking him from cold to freezing in seconds. He cursed and hugged himself, shivering. The water smelled stale. He still tried licking it off his arm, hoping to ease his thirst, but it tasted like rusty metal and he spat it out.

The unintentional shower lasted only a second, then Devyn was recoiling the hose. He dunked the mop, pushed it through the bars on the far side of the cage and scrubbed the floor. The smell of bleach filled the room. 

_ How nice of Jason to keep the place so sanitary for his guests. _ Michael let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob. Devyn sped through the cleaning, then mopped the floor outside the cage all the way down to the grating.

"Dev," Michael pleaded. His teeth were chattering. "Please. Please help me. Just bring me the key. Please."

The young man hunched up his shoulders, ducked his head low. He was walking toward the bucket. He was going to leave. Michael started to panic despite himself. He grabbed the bars.

_ "Please!  _ Don't leave me here!"

Devyn stopped by the bucket, but he didn't look back. When he spoke, his voice was barely a mumble.

"I'm sorry." 

_ "Fuck _ that!" Michael's voice rose to a yell, as his fragile restraint snapped. "Devyn, you know he's going to kill me. Isn't he? He's gonna fucking kill me! I'm locked in a fucking cage in a freezing basement and all I have to drink is a bottle of fucking  _ piss!  _ Don't be  _ sorry, FUCKING DO SOMETHING!" _

Devyn flinched as though Michael had struck him. He finally turned around. In stark contrast to his mild apology, his face was flushed, twisted into such an expression of torment that he looked like a different person.

_ "I. CAN'T!"  _ Each word came as a separate, muted scream. Devyn's arms spasmed like he would throw the mop across the room, but instead he turned, grabbed the bucket, and half-ran back around the wall and out of Michael's sight.

Michael slammed his palms against the bars, over and over. It rattled his wrist bones more than it did the cage. He fisted his hands, squeezed his eyes shut and lowered his forehead to his knees. He hugged himself, trying to bring comfort to the clenching despair in his chest.

~~~

Despite the fire burning in his throat, Devyn managed to return the bucket to its place a couple of corners over from Mr. Jacobs' cage, dumping it over so the remaining water spilled down the floor drain. Thus relieved of his duty, he ran to a corner of the basement where he was fairly sure his father never went. The little semi-room held a few junk items his father had forgotten about: a St. Andrew's cross with a broken manacle, a dented ammunition case, and a twin sized mattress with a cluster of holes in the middle. The blood around the holes had dried into thin, black flakes.

Devyn ran to the wall and punched it, then danced away as agony shot up from his wounded knuckles. He curled his fists up by his face and boxed the wall with his elbows, hard enough to bruise, before he caught himself; he couldn't risk making any new marks on himself that his father might notice.

He threw his back against the wall and slid to the floor, fell to his side, and curled around himself. He bit into his bicep and screamed, muffling the sound, covering his face with his arms.

Rheven was hurt. It was because of him. Mr. Jacobs was hurt. It was because of him. He couldn't help either of them. He couldn't do anything right. Everyone who came near him got hurt. 

_ Think of her, next time you feel like doing something daring.  _

But he hadn't. He had forgotten his father's warning, had thought he could protect her. He was always so stupid, always fucking up, and the people he cared about got hurt. The only ones who didn't get hurt were the ones who punished him. He deserved to be punished. It was the only thing that made sense. Otherwise, why did everyone he cared about keep getting hurt?

It felt like his chest was being torn apart.

He screamed and screamed into his arms. After a while the screams became sobs, then the sobs turned to sniffles. Finally he just lay there, his head buzzing, his face numb, and stared at the holes in the mattress.

~~~~

The white-skinned man coughed weakly as water was dumped over his face. It washed some of the blood off and filled his nose. His eyelids fluttered and closed again. Jason put down the empty bucket and stuck the tube of the blood bag through the muzzle, poking the tip between his prisoner’s slender pink lips.

The man’s eyes remained closed, but he started sucking on the tube. Just a little at first, then more strongly, until the bag was nearly half empty. His eyes slitted open when Jason yanked the tube from his mouth: swirling jade irises that gleamed in the bright light. His muscles flexed, feeling for play in his bonds. There was none. His narrow gaze took in the room around him and the two men standing in front of him. 

Upside down, bathed in his own blood, and still choking on the water in his nose, he curled his lips in a sneer of utter disregard.

Jason looked him over. His face was mostly healed. Jason had heard the jawbone crunch into place as it knitted itself back together. His nose was in the middle of his face again, and his missing teeth had grown back.

"What's your name, boy?" Jason asked conversationally.

The bound man hissed at him in a creepy little laugh, but did not answer.

Jason smiled. Although he did feel the pressure of time weighing on him, the need for answers, he had been fantasizing for years about having one of these blood drinkers chained in his dungeon. The lust was a distraction, but a welcome one as long as he kept it in check. He was going to thoroughly enjoy this.

He nodded at Shaw, who walked to the tilted table (the bound man's muscles flexed as though to jump at him, but he could do nothing) and pulled around two long, thick, black cables from the table on either side of him.

Jason took one from him and pushed the gold-plated bulb at the end of it against the bound man's chest, wedging it between two of the thin silver cords which held him fast. He pulled a wire from the end of the bulb and draped it over one cord, touching metal to metal, and pushed the stiff, barbed end of the wire an inch deep into the man's skin, below his right nipple. 

He repeated the process five more times, until six wires fanned out around the bulb, crossing the metal cords, planting securely into the white-skinned man's chest like the grip of a silver spider. Once finished, he pressed on the back of the bulb. This engaged the final hook, which thunked directly into the bound man's chest. If any part of the process hurt him, the captive didn't show it.

Jason attached the second bulb to his inner left thigh in the same fashion. Once he was finished he leaned back, looking down into the man's eyes. He stroked one hand over his thigh and up his body, squeezing his balls and cock with casual possessiveness, then rubbing a slow circle around his navel. 

"Last chance," he said softly.

Disdainful jade eyes simply looked at him. Anticipation fluttered in Jason’s lower belly.

He and Shaw backed away from the table, and Jason flipped the wall switch. Current danced between the spread wires hooked into the prisoner’s chest. His muscles spasmed violently, but the cords held him in place. One long arc zapped from the bulb on his thigh all the way to the one on his chest; smoke rose from where it landed.

Jason flipped the light switch back down and approached the tilt table. The white-skinned man's flesh was blackened beneath every single metal cord on his body. They had carried the current as designed, striping him from head to foot. Steam rose up from his roasted skin. The two bulbs were both circled by a wide diameter of black, broken flesh. He heard Shaw chortle delightedly while he examined his handiwork.

He was impressed. He'd commissioned the device a couple years ago in a splurge of imaginative excess, but had only ever used it once. It had killed the man outright, and where was the fun in that?

But this… _ this. _

His blood sang with excitement. He adjusted his hardening cock in his pants as he took in the scorched, twitching man before him.

He leaned against his prisoner, pressed his face into his belly, and inhaled deeply. Beneath the stench of burning skin and singed hair, beneath the coppery tang of blood, he smelled of masculine sweat touched with the scent of cool winter. Like a cold front blowing in overnight in late summer. Jason bit hard into his lower belly and growled with pure pleasure. The muscular abs flexed beneath his tongue, resisting him beautifully.

_ "Putain,"  _ the man spat. Jason smiled around the flesh in his teeth, then released it. The half-moons of tooth marks had filled with blood beneath the skin. Jason licked them in long, luxurious strokes of his tongue until the marks faded away, the white flesh becoming smooth and perfect once more. The skin beneath the black stripes had healed as well. He wiped some of the soot away from one of the wires on the man's thigh to check it, but the burns were gone.

Beautiful.

"Do you speak English, boy?" he asked, giving the man a pleased smile. He knew he’d just been insulted in French, but that was about the extent of his knowledge of the language.

The bound man sneered at him, then said something fluid and quick. Jason didn't catch a word of it. He sauntered back to the wall and flipped the switch again, leaving it on a little longer than he had before.

This time, as soon as the current stopped, the man was practically gargling in pain. Jason knelt to put them eye to eye. He touched the man’s face lightly, possessively, and let that show in his eyes; he let his prisoner know, through his expression, that he was now owned. The jade eyes hardened in anger.

"Child!" the man hissed, in a thickly accented voice. "Rotting meat! You  _ reek _ of your own death." Then he lapsed back into rapid French.

"He says he plans to empty the blood from your balls and keep you on a leash at his feet until you die of old age," supplied a deep, southern drawl from behind the table.

Jason looked up at his quiet third companion, the tall mercenary with the steel colored hair, and smiled. 

"Thank you, Jaeger. I assumed it was something along those lines."

The bound man turned his eyes to the side, unable to move his head.  _ "Tueur," _ he said, and whispered another phrase in French. Jaeger said something in return, and Jason raised his eyebrows in a question.

"Some old personal business," Jaeger said with half a shrug. "It has no bearing on tonight." 

Jason let it go at that. Jaeger had an impeccable reputation, and had worked for him before. As long as he paid the man his fee, he wasn't concerned about him causing any interference.

"Speak English, Phillippe," Jaeger addressed the bound man. "You're wasting time."

_ “Phillippe,” _ Jason repeated. “That’s cute.”

"You will not keep me here long,” Phillippe said, recovering his superior sneer. “You have stepped far over your bounds, dog of my Master."

Jason chuffed out a laugh. For all he knew, this man could be ten times his age. He was obviously accustomed to being the predator. He had grown overly sure of himself. Jason knew he could feel pain, and he didn't believe Treske and his kin thought or felt too differently from humans. It might be a challenge, but it was just a matter of finding the right leverage to break him. He wiggled his fingers at Shaw. The cop took his cue and handed him a scalpel. 

"You have a new Master now, boy," Jason said. He touched the scalpel to the base of the man's cock, and pulled the delicate skin out with his other hand to meet the blade. 

"So why not get us off to a good start by telling me why Treske wants my kids?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 like = 1 healing potion  
> 1 comment = 3 extra lives
> 
> I really love all your comments!!! I cherish each and every one!
> 
> PS It's harder than I expected to keep up with a chapter a week with way my jobs are going right now. The book is already written, but I couldn't stand my old 2013 writing style so have been spending a couple hours updating the flow of language before I post. :o I might lag behind, but will continue to do my best to push these out once a week!
> 
> Holler at me here or on [tumblr](http://subverbaldreams.tumblr.com/fics), [newtumbl](http://subverbaldreams.newtumbl.com/), or [twitter](http://twitter.com/SubverbalD).


	14. Comfort

Devyn returned a few hours into Ransom's shift, bearing a letter-sized pad and a pencil in one hand. He leaned over his sister carefully and laid them next to her left hand. He still wasn't looking at either of them. His posture seemed even more hunched and downtrodden than usual. Though, Ransom reflected, he’d only known the kid a few days so he wasn’t sure of what counted as “usual.” 

The boy murmured something to Rheven about a brush, and she nodded. He turned to Ransom, eyes downcast.

"Master Kenward, may I be let out, sir?" 

Ransom grunted and let him out. It felt weird to him every time the children called him "Master." Another of Corbin's kinks...and probably considered a job perk for the men who worked for him. What red-blooded male _wouldn’t_ enjoy being called Master by a pair of beautiful, submissive teenage sex slaves who would do anything he wanted? 

_There has got to be something wrong with me,_ he thought sourly.

Rheven started to lift her head and shoulders, as if trying to sit up.

"Hey," Ransom said quietly, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Lie down." 

Rheven obeyed, the line of effort between her eyebrows going flat when she saw him watching. Hiding herself. The peaks in the heart rate line on the monitor grew closer together, giving lie to her disinterested expression.

Looking around, he was able to locate the lever to raise the head of the bed. He lifted it carefully into a mostly sitting position, and lifted the feet as well. Rheven watched him from the corner of her eye. After he finished, their eyes met briefly. Her lips turned up into a tiny smile before her face melted back into that placid mask.

Ransom returned to his chair. Rheven put the pad on her legs and began to draw. In his peripheral vision, he saw her sneak a look at him every now and then.

***

Ransom cleaned his gun in utter boredom as he sat by the bed, listening to the scritch of pencil on paper. After about an hour, Devyn returned. This time he held a bulging plastic grocery bag. His nervous eyes flickered back and forth between his sister and a space somewhere around Ransom's knees as he approached the bed. 

He set the bag on the bed and withdrew a toothbrush, holding the bristled end through the bag so his sister could take the handle with a murmured "Thanks." She held it out in turn so he could squirt toothpaste on the brush, and in this fashion they went through the routine so she could brush her teeth with her one good hand, spitting into the empty cup he pulled from the bag as well. With apparent care, the twins avoided making skin contact the entire time.

The girl pushed open the bag and looked at something--Ransom couldn't see the label, but it looked like a bag of wet wipes--and her brother mumbled, "If you wanna wash up, or something. Thought you might want it."

"Thanks," she murmured again. Ransom had helped her to the restroom once already that night, but she hadn't had an opportunity to bathe in the last day; she was still half knocked out from the pain medication and unsteady on her feet. 

"And..." the boy muttered. He picked up a hairbrush from the bag to show it to her before putting it back. "You need anything?" 

They were both speaking so quietly, even right next to them it was hard to hear. Ransom pretended he wasn't listening or watching them from the corner of his eye, though he was doing both. The girl shook her head. Then Devyn mouthed something, and gestured toward Ransom. The girl shook her head again and mouthed a couple of syllables in return. It seemed to relieve her brother; his shoulders unclenched quite a bit.

"I'll be here when they change over," he breathed enigmatically, or that's what it sounded like. Ransom could barely hear him and wondered if he had misunderstood. For the third time she quietly thanked him. The boy picked up the toothbrush, toothpaste, and spit cup, and turned toward Ransom. 

"Master Kenward, may I be let out, sir?" 

Ransom buzzed him out, then sat there for awhile, considering the interaction that had just taken place. The more he thought it through, the more he suspected he knew what had passed between the twins. 

The boy had asked if Ransom had hurt her. She said no, hence his relief. Then he promised to be with her when Ransom's shift ended. He remembered walking in on Shaw with the twins, and it made sense.

Even though her brother couldn't protect her, he would be there with her. So she wouldn't face it alone.

~~~~

Michael was curled on his side, half-asleep. He had no idea how long it had been. This was day two or three, he was pretty sure. The lights had gone out once for a long time, probably out for the night, then come back on. The darkness had made his captivity even more miserable. He kept thinking he heard rats, though nothing showed itself. 

He kept dozing in and out. There were two big lumps on his head where Jason had hit him, his ribs were bruised, and the pain was constant. His whole body was cramped from being unable to stretch out, and he had to shift continually as his limbs went numb from lying on the concrete floor. He was ravenous, but the thirst was worse, much worse than the hunger. 

_If I had known I'd be here, I wouldn't have had all those energy drinks,_ he thought. He giggled out loud, then stopped as pain shot through his skull. 

He had urinated a lot as the alcohol and energy drinks made their way out of his system, and he thought he could even drink that nasty, metallic tasting water if he had the chance. Despite himself, his eyes kept wandering to the bottle Jason had left him with. He still hadn't touched it. 

_Not "still." I_ won't _touch it. I'll die of thirst before I touch it._

He'd kill for another whiskey, though. He'd been drinking a lot more since everything had gone down with Jason; he knew it was becoming a problem, but it didn't seem to matter compared to the bigger issue of his whole life being under the control of a psychopath.

His eyes flew open at the sound of movement. It was Devyn again, mop and bucket in hand. Michael turned onto his other side to face him, as the boy set about spraying and mopping the floor. Neither of them spoke for a while; Michael just watched him work, head resting on his arm. His heart felt numb. Finally, he broke the silence. 

"Is the girl okay?" he rasped. 

_Is that_ my _voice?_ It sounded terrible, cracked and whispery.

Devyn didn't look at him, but he nodded. He seemed to speed the pace of his work though, rushing through the movements as if desperate to escape the room. 

_I'm right there with you._

Michael had tried fruitlessly to think of something he could say if the boy came in again, during the eternity he had spent alone in that cage, that would convince Devyn to help him. But there was nothing.

Devyn finished his work and was on his way out, when Michael couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

"Can I please have some water?" he croaked. 

Devyn stopped and stood still for a moment.

Then he walked out.

Michael lay there miserably and watched the undrinkable bleach water dry out on the other side of the cage.

***

Michael woke up to screams. They went on and on and on: high-pitched, gurgling shrieks of agony. He hugged himself and trembled from head to foot until the sound faded into just the occasional cry. The rush of adrenaline left him exhausted as it faded out. He was falling into a doze again when, through his slitted eyes, he saw Devyn come back around the corner. No mop and bucket, this time. Devyn hurried up to the cage bars and knelt beside him.

Michael lifted his head, trying to understand what was happening. The boy's face was visible through his parted hair, and he looked very nervous. His eyes were focused somewhere around Michael's shoulder; he wouldn't meet his gaze. He waved his hand, too rapidly, in a “come-here” gesture. 

_Is he going to let me out?_ The surge of hope was too much to bear, but he knew it wasn't going to happen. The key still hung on the wall.

Still, Devyn was doing something he wasn't supposed to; that much was obvious. So was his fear. Michael sat up and moved toward him, before the boy could change his mind about whatever he was doing and leave again. 

Michael grunted with both surprise and pain when the boy reached into the cage and grabbed the back of his head. 

Devyn pulled his face up to the bars…

...And kissed him.

Michael just stared, dumbfounded, as Devyn's soft, warm lips pressed against his own. Then he felt the trickle of cool liquid being squirted slowly into his mouth.

_Water!_

He couldn't believe it. Nothing had ever tasted so amazingly good. He reached through the bars and caught the boy's shoulders, pulled him close and drank the wonderful, sweet liquid from his lips. The flow stopped much too soon. Michael groaned in frustration and put a hand on the back of Devyn's head, still gripping his shoulder with the other hand. He held the boy in place and sucked the moisture from his full, soft lips. He tasted like cherries; cherries and vanilla.

Devyn should have been repelled. Michael suddenly became conscious of the fact that he was dirty, unshaven, and just generally probably looked (and smelled) like hell. But the boy didn't pull away--no, he did the opposite. His fingers tightened on the back of Michael's head, threading up into his hair. Devyn sighed and opened his mouth, and slid his tongue between Michael's lips. Before Michael realized it, the exchange of water had morphed into a deep kiss. 

He opened his eyes in shock. Devyn's eyes were closed, his eyebrows drawn together, as he pushed his face between the bars. His fingers tangled into Michael's hair as he ate at his mouth. His other hand kneaded into the densely knotted muscles between Michael's neck and shoulder, making his hair stand on end and his skin tingle with pleasure.

Something in Michael's head simply short-circuited. He began returning the kiss with equal fervor. He couldn't remember the last time anyone but Jason had touched him like this. Devyn's technique was expert, his hands and mouth working together to please. His motions were too frantic, though. Too pressured, as though he was kissing not in desire, but in desperation--or perhaps Michael was projecting his own emotions onto the youth, because he felt a stark foreboding intertwined with his need. The horror of their present situation seemed to polarize the sensations for them both, making both pleasure and misery so intense they were almost unbearable. They gripped each other like two drowning people grabbing a life raft. Devyn's mouth was absolutely delicious, fresh and warm and wet. It felt so good, so comforting, after being cold and alone for so long. Michael found himself cupping the boy's head and the back of his neck with a tenderness he'd never felt toward him before, cradling him like he was made of glass.

Devyn broke away from him to take a deep breath. His cheeks were flushed, his lips open, panting. His half-lidded blue and gold eyes were soft with longing, fixed on Michael's mouth. He looked sad, and as exhausted as Michael felt. His breath came out in a shuddering sigh that puffed sweetly against Michael's lips. Michael started to draw him in again, and the boy moved with his pull--

\--but then his eyes flew wide open, and sadness was replaced by fear. Devyn whipped his hands back out of the cage as if he had only just realized what he was doing. He tore out of Michael's grasp, scrambled to his feet and ran out of the room.

_Just when everything stops making sense..._

The thought trailed off drunkenly _._ Michael kept his face pressed against the bars for a while, feeling like his brain had just been scrambled. He tried to hold on to that moment of serenity and the sweet taste in his mouth for as long as he could. It might be the last he would ever know.

The screams had stopped entirely.

~~~~

Nate Shaw could not _wait_ to take a shower. He was covered in gore. He'd scraped most of it off in the basement, spraying down his arms and legs with the hose, but bits still clung to his hair and he could feel them drying under his shirt, which he absolutely would not have worn if he'd known it was going to be vivisection night. _It's all fun and games til you try to get the stains out of a forty dollar shirt,_ he thought. He chuckled under his breath, as he went to grab some clean clothes from his bag in the car.

"Hey, Shaw," a voice called. Nate looked over his shoulder to see another guard, Anders, waving at him from the front hall. "C'mere, gotta show you somethin." 

The man looked him up and down as he neared and whistled. "Damn," he said in an awed voice. "I wouldn't want your job."

Nate laughed. He felt jovial. He was still heady from the torture. Still riding the intense rush. His ears were ringing from being that close to the screaming man. Thing. Whatever the hell it was. He had never experienced anything so extreme. It had been orgasmic.

"What's up, Anders?" he asked, smiling.

"Saw this on the security cams, thought you'd wanna check it out." He preceded Nate into the monitor room. Nate touched his gun, assuring himself it was present and ready. He felt annoyed with Anders for acting so lackadaisical about a possible security issue. 

"Show me."

Anders tapped one of the screens, drawing Nate's attention. It was Jacobs, Corbin's newest bitch, huddled in his cage. 

Nate snorted. "So what?"

Anders smirked at him and messed with the keyboard. 

_Punk,_ Nate thought, _don't fuck around with me. I could do anything I wanted to you out here. I'm Corbin's right-hand man._ Corbin would probably be pissed at him if he jacked up one of the guards just for fun, though. Bad for morale, bad for business. 

He still enjoyed the thought. The power.

Anders clicked the mouse and the image started moving. Nate leaned forward with interest as Devyn entered the picture, and knelt in front of the caged man. 

And kissed him.

For a _long_ time.

Nate's smile widened into a grin. A slow laugh came out of him as he watched the kiss ending, watched the little cocksucker run out of the room like his ass was on fire. Nate straightened and slapped Anders on the back. Anders scowled and craned his neck around, trying to see if the slap had left blood on his shirt.

"Oh man, that is priceless," Nate chuckled, wiping an imaginary tear from his eye. "It must be Christmas in July."

"April," Anders corrected him.

"Shut the fuck up," he retorted, but without rancor. He left the room grinning. He couldn't wait to see Corbin's face when he saw the video.

~~~~

Ransom touched his gun as the door swung open. His eyes narrowed as Shaw poked his head in. The cop’s blond hair was matted with red and black. It had caked into the creases of his face. 

Shaw's eyes searched the room until they fell on Devyn, who had returned about thirty minutes prior and was sitting at the foot of the bed, staring at the wall. A weird smile plastered itself over Shaw’s face. 

Ransom studied him. Something was going on. He had been torturing someone, obviously; not just by the blood on him but by the mad gleam in his eye. He was high on that insane rush that some men got when they caused pain.

"Boy," Shaw snapped. The kid's head tilted toward him, hair falling over his eyes.

"Sir."

"Come." He watched the boy like a hungry wolf as Devyn pushed himself up and walked to the door. Then they were gone.

Ransom looked back at the bed. Rheven was staring at the closed door, the drawing pad forgotten, fallen across her lap. She clutched the sheets with her good hand.

_She knows._

"What's that about?" Ransom asked her.

She looked at him with those too-wide, tear-filled eyes and he could clearly see her pain at that moment: the suffering of a child watching some terrible event unfold, something she knew was coming but could not prevent.

"Daddy's mad," she whispered.

~~~~

Master Shaw's hand closed on the back of his neck as soon as the door shut behind them. He pulled Devyn along as he walked in long strides down the hall. The man reeked of blood. It was all in his hair. 

Devyn's stomach twisted up. He was in trouble. He wasn't sure why, but he had a good idea. He should have known. He never should have disobeyed his father.

The officer dragged him down the basement steps, but they didn't go far. His father was there, waiting for them. Devyn went cold when he saw him. The man was covered in streaks of blood. It looked like he'd wiped a lot of it off with a towel; the remainder clung to the creases between his muscles, the lines in his face, and caked his hair into spikes. He looked like a demon, something out of a nightmare. 

Master Shaw dragged him up to stand before his towering father. Devyn’s legs were shaking already, quivering like jelly. He focused on his father's boots.

Chunks of something were crusted on them.

"Chair," Daddy said. Master Shaw grabbed Devyn’s arm and threw him against a high-backed wooden chair. He sprawled onto it at first, but pushed himself around and sat up obediently straight, putting his arms by his sides so the policeman could strap them to the chair's back. His legs were strapped next, bound tightly to the legs of the chair. He kept his eyes on those crusted boots, and watched both men from his peripheral vision, trying to stay hidden behind his hair.

The officer finished strapping him down and stood. He backed up to let Daddy approach. The huge man knelt on one knee in front of Devyn, putting them eye to eye. Devyn had to look up at him. It was expected. Daddy never let him hide, not from him.

He raised his head and lifted his gaze to his father's knowing gray eyes, one of them disconcertingly lined with black, peppered with red flecks inside the white. There was blood in his eyebrows. His eyes held an alien heat: something violent, savage. Devyn's heart began to pound like it would come out of his chest.

"Tell me," Daddy said quietly, "what you did."

 _No...no, no, no..._

Devyn swallowed. Trembling took over his entire body. 

The question was too open. 

_Does he know?_ What _does he know?_ If he told him about Mr. Jacobs and this was about something else, he would be in even more trouble. If his father knew Devyn had directly disobeyed him by bringing water to his prisoner, he was going to do something terrible. 

_He might kill Mr. Jacobs. He might kill me._

_What does he_ know? 

His father grabbed his throat and thrust his face forward until their noses touched, eyes burning into him. _"Stop_ trying to think of a lie, and _TELL ME WHAT YOU DID!"_ he roared.

Devyn screamed in panic through the grip on his throat: _"I kissed Mr. Jacobs!"_

That massive hand released him and he coughed, gasping. The big man stood too quickly, pacing away from him and then back, away and back. He was so agitated. Devyn had never seen him like this. But then, he had never seen him so completely bathed in blood and...and other things. 

_Don't think about them._

"Why," the man finally said, "did you do that?" He bent over the chair again, leaning with his huge hands crushing Devyn's biceps, watching Devyn's face when he answered. He had to tell the truth. His father always knew when he lied.

"Sir, I---I w-w-was lonely," he stammered. Master Shaw laughed harshly. His father's eyes just kept burning into his head.

"You were lonely," he repeated slowly.

Tears started to fall down Devyn's cheeks as he looked into his father's wild and terrifying gaze. Words began to spill out of him. All of them were true. 

"Sir, you've been busy, Sir, with work and I missed you, Sir. Please, Sir, I'm sorry, Sir, I just missed you," he gushed, and began to sob, still locked in that horrible, hot stare.

His father ran his tongue thoughtfully over his lower lip, licking the blood from it. "You were lonely, and you missed me. So you kissed Mr. Jacobs." 

_He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me._ Devyn started rocking in his seat as he wept, too frightened to hold still, his toes curling up.

Daddy stood, walking around the chair. When he came back he had something in his right hand, but Devyn couldn't see what it was. Devyn glanced over at Master Shaw, who was smiling at him, showing his teeth.

His father knelt in front of him, back on one knee. His hand was wrapped around whatever it was. He put that hand on Devyn's left arm, above the bandages, and slowly, lightly, stroked his curled hand over his skin. 

"Son." 

His voice held something bigger than the word itself. Devyn knew what it was, at least in part. It was a reminder of who he was. His father was angry because he had wanted someone else. He wasn't supposed to want anyone else. Normally he didn't, but Mr. Jacobs had always been very nice to him. He was handsome, too, and his eyes were kind. And he had brought Rheven back from the dead! He had saved her, like an angel. But Devyn still never would have kissed him, except for the water...but he couldn't tell his father about the water. He was sure his father would be angrier about the water than the kiss, and would make the punishment so severe, so hellish, that Devyn would never, ever disobey him again.

 _I'll never do it again anyway! I promise! I promise!_ The pleas didn't make it to his frozen lips. His father wouldn't take his word for it. He would make sure.

His father's left hand reached out and cupped his face, rubbing a thumb over his mouth, between his lips. He tasted of blood and sweat, but not his own. He had someone else's smell all over him. 

"Son," he said again, his voice softening. "I'm glad that you want to be with me."

Devyn watched his eyes in desperation, silently pleading for mercy. His father smiled at him, and it was gentle, benevolent. He was acknowledging the plea.

 _"But..."_ His right hand traced over Devyn’s arm and rested on his chest. "I'm a little confused _,_ " his eyebrows drew together, "that you would kiss my _bitch,"_ his hand traced up to Devyn's chin, "because you missed _me."_ Something sharp and pointed poked out of his hand, cold against Devyn's throat.

He squeezed his eyes shut, certain that he was about to die. He held his breath and waited for it to happen. He felt his father's breath against his face. The man was up against him again, lips nearly touching his. But not quite.

"Maybe I just need something to remind me," Daddy whispered, "that you are just a little whore, and I expect too much of you."

Then cold heat sliced through Devyn's chest, and he was screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holler at me here or on [tumblr](http://subverbaldreams.tumblr.com/fics), [newtumbl](http://subverbaldreams.newtumbl.com/) (my repository for gay sexy pics and videos), or [twitter](http://twitter.com/SubverbalD).
> 
> I really want to hear from you!


	15. Punishment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason expresses his displeasure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning** for _severe_ torture and rape, Nate being a disgusting slime bag, and Jason being a violent psychopath. If that messes with you, you should skip this chapter and also the next one. This is the turning point of the story, but it’s gonna get dark before it gets better.

Rheven shivered and wept nonstop. Even though she made no sound, Ransom couldn't stay turned away, ignoring it. He knew he should. He was already thinking of her much more than he ought to. It was going to bite him in the ass, hard.

He turned toward her. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her left hand clenched around the pencil. Tears ran down her face, which was contorted as if in pain, but her open mouth took the air in and out without making a sound. He'd never seen anyone cry that hard in such perfect silence.

"Can I see your drawing?" he asked. She jerked, her eyes flying open. She looked disoriented at first, then reluctant, but she tilted the pad toward him. He leaned over her shoulder.

_ You had to ask, you fucking idiot,  _ he berated himself. The drawing was very well done, but that wasn't the problem.

It was him. That explained why she had kept sneaking glances at him. He was holding an assault rifle (the detail was fantastic; it looked just like an AK-47) and his face held a determined expression. He was shooting from one knee at a creature which was in a lunging attack stance, poised as if running toward him. The creature's arms were elongated with great dripping claws, and its mouth was open to bite, huge fangs bared. It looked a lot like Treske.

"Well done," he said, in the absence of anything more apropos. "Great." 

_ Super. _

"Thank you, sir," she murmured. Her voice was thick from the tears.

Ransom turned and leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes.  _ He's not like the others, _ her voice said in his memory.  _ He's different.  _ And then,  _ you don't belong here.  _ He was beginning to wonder if she was psychic or something. But she was definitely troubled, maybe damaged for life, however short that may be for her.

He didn't want her looking up to him like he was some kind of action hero. He didn't want to have to live with that. Though he hadn't thought about it before, when he considered the other male figures in her life he realized it probably made sense from her perspective. 

_ So I don't beat up her brother or rape her, and that makes me a fucking hero. Cheers to me. _

He sat with her and considered the tenability of his position in Corbin's house.

_ ~~~~ _

Devyn knelt in the basement bathing room, inside the large tub, as he scrubbed his father's leather pants with saddle soap. He couldn't get the blood out. It just kept on oozing out of the leather, never-ending red foam coming up under his brush. When his father had removed them, they had stuck to him all the way down. The blood had soaked through them and stained his skin. Undressed, he had looked like an evil god, covered head to toe in blood, powerful and cruel. He had stood in the tub while Devyn cleaned him. Ignored him completely as he worked to get all the blood off him. He hadn't even responded to Devyn's hands on his cock, cleaning around the foreskin, nothing. It was like he hadn't been there.

It was awful, being ignored. It was worse than being hurt by him. At least when his Daddy hurt him, he was focused on him. It was intimate. This...this was punishment.

Once clean, he had left without a word. Then Master Shaw had stepped into the shower. 

He hadn't ignored him.

Devyn realized he had spaced out and resumed his work. More blood dripped off his chest and onto the leather. He groaned in tired frustration and reached for a towel, wiping off the leather, then pressing the towel against his chest. 

His ears perked at the sound of footsteps. He ducked his head and started scrubbing harder.

~~~~

Michael slitted his eyes at the sound of footsteps, not wanting to move, until it occurred to him that they were the steps of someone wearing shoes, which in this house couldn't be a good thing.

He looked up. Jason rounded the corner. Good old Officer Nate followed along behind him. They were both wearing black leather pants and boots. Jason was bare-chested; Nate wore a tight black shirt, gun belt around his hips. They both looked unnervingly purposeful, stalking toward him with manic energy. Jason had large cuffs in one hand. In his other he had a long chain. And a collar.

Jason squatted by the cage as Nate went to the wall where the key hung. Michael pressed back against the bars, away from the cage door. He keenly felt the irony in the situation. He didn't want to be let out of the cage. Not with those two. Not with whatever they had planned. Jason caught his gaze and held it. 

"Not thirsty?" 

"I'm not gonna play your games," Michael rasped, but there was no force to the words. His head was pounding, burning. He would do anything for some water.

Jason smiled. "Okay," he said mildly as Nate approached. The cop unlocked the cage door and stepped back. He drew his gun and pointed it levelly at Michael. Jason put a hand out in invitation, and smiled. 

"Come out. Game time is over. Shaw's going to shoot you in the foot if you try anything. Move too fast, and he might just miss and kill you."

"You can't. You won't do that." The denial felt ridiculous even as he said it.

Jason looked at him as though about to hand him a dunce cap and make him sit in a corner. He frowned, and said in a pondering voice, "I have always thought sound carries pretty well through this whole basement. Have you noticed?" Michael remembered those horrible screams which had dragged on forever. Jason watched the memory enter his eyes and smiled as though pleased that he had caught up to the situation.

"Get out, turn around, and bend over the cage with both hands behind your back."

He got out.

It hurt so much to stand up, but it felt wonderful at the same time. His back popped and he had to grab the cage to pull himself upright and then not to fall over. As he faced it, he was shoved in the back and he fell forward against the cage, bent over, almost smashing his face into the bars. His hands were pulled behind him and cuffed in seconds, then Nate held him in place, the cold barrel of his gun pressed into his shoulder, while the other man fastened the collar around his neck. He heard but couldn't see Jason moving around him, then there was the ring of metal on metal, and the cold steel of another set of cuffs snapped around his ankles.

Nate pulled him to standing by yanking the back of the collar on his neck. He gagged as he was lifted, and promptly crumpled to the floor, unable to hold himself upright. A black boot kicked him in the shoulder. 

"Get the fuck up," the cop snarled.

"Can't!" he wheezed. 

Nate kicked him again, this time in the stomach. He fell to his side, curling up and tucking his face away as the man's boots stomped down on him several more times. Then the two of them hefted him, each taking an arm, and dragged him out of the room.

He was completely disoriented by the time they made it to their destination. The new room was bigger and more cluttered than the one he'd been caged in for the last eternity. He caught only glimpses of the leather and wood and metal structures and implements surrounding him as he was dragged into the room. He thought he saw a flash of movement before he was thrown against a wall. 

The two men worked quickly on him, connecting a chain to his leg restraint. Jason strapped a harness around his chest while Nate shoved a long dowel under his arms, wedging it between his cuffed arms and his back. He fastened the dowel both to Michael's bound wrists and to the back of the chest harness, effectively immobilizing his upper body. He was lifted again and pushed up against the wall. Each man took a side of the dowel and attached it to a chain hanging from the wall. There was definitely someone behind them, but he couldn't see who; he could barely keep his head up as they shoved him around. Jason stepped in front of him, pressed against him, and reached around him to attach a third chain to the back of the harness. 

Once he was secured, they released him and stepped back. His legs buckled, and most of his weight was caught by the dowel, a mere two inches of hard wood wedged under each bicep. It pulled his arms back until his shoulders cracked. It was agony. He squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his teeth over a scream.

The next thing he knew, strong hands were holding his head and the tip of a water bottle-- _the_ water bottle--was forced into his mouth. He choked and tried to cough it out as the piss was poured into his mouth, but he wound up swallowing most of it to keep from drowning in it. They didn't stop until the bottle was empty, then they released his head. He coughed, gasped for breath, and tried to blow the liquid out of his sinuses. 

Jason's hands smacked into the wall on either side of him as he leaned close to him, their faces almost touching. 

"I  _ gave _ you," he said very slowly, as if speaking to a retarded child, "enough to drink. You needed liquid because you lost some blood. But you were too stupid to pick it up and drink it. 

"There are a lot of people," he continued, "who would pay thousands of dollars to drink my piss. There are a lot  _ more  _ who would pay  _ tens  _ of thousands to suck my cock. You've been getting it all for free. I've been taking good care of you, kitten, fucking you and sheltering you and keeping you from dying of thirst when you're too stupid to drink to stay alive. But I'm not feeling a lot of gratitude from you. Why is that?"

Michael didn't answer. The logic was so psychotic he couldn't formulate any kind of response. Or maybe his head just wasn't working right. Maybe Jason was making sense and he wasn't catching it. He had a concussion, he'd lost blood, and he'd gone for probably two days without food or water. He felt like he was in a dream. Except dreams didn't hurt this much.

Jason's big hand stroked his hair, which had become greasy and tangled over the last couple of days. He petted his head, his face; he rubbed the long stubble on his cheek and massaged the back of his neck. Michael's eyes fell shut; the gentle caresses brought on a disorienting mix of grief and yearning which derailed his thoughts. The taste still in his mouth wasn't as bad as he'd thought it would be, and the burning thirst had lessened a little bit. Tears welled up behind his eyelids. It felt so good to receive a comforting touch. Everything else had become so terrifying and painful. He was so tired...so tired.

"See, that feels better now, doesn't it?" Jason asked, his voice growing gentler. He pressed his lower body up against Michael's. The leather was cool against Michael's naked skin, but it was soft too, a wonderful contrast to the concrete floor and steel bars. "Everything feels so much better when you listen to your Daddy like a good boy."

Michael snapped out of the peaceful moment instantly. He spat, flinging piss-tinged saliva across Jason's face.

Jason slapped him. He didn't do it very hard, but it hurt like hell, jangling his already rattled brain. 

"I think what you need, kitten, is a lesson in how to be grateful." Jason didn't look or sound the least bit riled up. He wiped his face clean with one hand and said, "Son."

At first Michael thought he was calling  _ him _ “son,” but then the response came from behind Jason. 

"Sir, yes, Sir!" 

Jason stepped theatrically to the side, and out of his line of vision. Devyn was there, his back to them. He was wearing his black shorts and was held to the floor via chains set into steel posts in the concrete. The chains were attached to heavy silver links on the thick, black leather bracelets and anklets he wore. He was on his hands and knees, his scar-striped legs spread open to them.

"Do you want to help Daddy show Mr. Jacobs how a good boy behaves?" Jason asked as he stalked around the kneeling youth.

"Sir, yes, Sir!" the boy responded. His voice was still very hoarse, cracking every other word. Nate walked around him to hand Jason a long whip. Jason never took his eyes off the boy.

"No," Michael's voice croaked out of him. The whip had a thick handle, but the tail was very thin, knotted at the end to give it weight. Dread rolled through his stomach, freezing his insides. "No. Jason,  _ please _ !"

Jason jerked his head in Michael's direction and Nate walked around him, eyes on Michael. His heart leapt in panic and he twisted against his restraints. The blonde cop took something from the wall above and to the right of his head and said, "Open up," with that sneering smile. Michael clamped his mouth shut.

The cop punched him in the stomach, hard--once, then twice, then a third time. His breath came out in a wheeze and the next thing he knew, something hard and oblong was being stuffed in his mouth. The cop had the gag fastened around the back of his head in seconds. The fat silicone nub inside his mouth was attached to a wide piece of leather. He wondered if it was the same gag he had seen Devyn wearing, ages ago, when he had first seen him tied to the bed.

Jason caught his eye and smiled as he backed up a few steps from the kneeling boy. "Lesson number one, kitten. Be grateful for what I give you." 

His arm went back, and the whip came down in a blur.

Devyn arched backwards in a soundless bow. He held the position for a few seconds, then thrashed against the chains holding him to the ground, a shriek ripping out of his lungs. Immediately on the heels of that wordless sound of pain, he gulped in a deep breath and screamed out,  _ "SIR, THANK YOU, SIR!"  _

He got control of himself quickly and was back in position on his hands and knees, gasping in great coughing gulps of air, his whole body trembling. His skin had split wide open. Blood blossomed inside of the wound like a time-lapse video of a blooming flower.

And the whip came down again.

And again.

After every blow he fought, screamed, and thanked his torturer. The lashes rained down faster and faster, not giving him time to right himself. The whip flung up a spray of ruby droplets each time it flew through the air. Devyn thrashed against his bonds, his voice coming out only intermittently now as his vocal cords were torn raw, though his chest kept heaving. At some point Michael had joined his cries, screaming "STOP! STOP!" unintelligibly through the gag in his mouth.

The whip came down a final time and did not rise again. Devyn writhed on the floor. A rough, feral howl emitted from deep in his chest, over and over. Jason knelt on one knee by Devyn's head and began petting his hair. That awful groaning sound faded away slowly and the boy started making a pitiful noise, like a crying puppy. 

_ "Daddy....Daddy...."  _ he whimpered.

Michael could hardly get any air behind the gag, he was breathing so hard. His head felt so hot he couldn't think. The long, thin whip hadn't just raised welts. It had unzipped a dozen wide gashes across the youth's back--white-rimmed open mouths which drooled streams of blood down his body. The boy's muscles kept twitching spastically.

"I think Mr. Jacobs wants me to stop," Jason said softly as he ran his hands over the boy's prone form.

_ "No, Sir--no--please,"  _ Devyn whimpered between wretched groans, and reached for his father's boot with one bound hand.

"No?" Jason tilted his head. He looked up, directly at Michael as though speaking to him. His lip curled into a crooked smirk. "You want me to keep going?"

_ "Sir, yes, Sir." _

"Shouldn't we take a break? I could go play with Mr. Jacobs for a while."

_ "N--NO, Sir, please!" _ The boy scrabbled at his father's boot, wrapping his hand around it.

Jason's grin widened, and he stared into Michael, his eyes filled with vicious humor. 

"I don't think you can take any more. I'm going to go fuck Mr. Jacobs. He's been a good boy."

Devyn began crying. The horrible, broken sound drizzled out of him without force, without hope. Michael’s own eyes teared up in response.

_ "Stop," _ he pleaded through the gag.  _ "Please, stop." _

Jason's expression went still, and dread washed over Michael's body. The torturer responded to the plea like a hungry predator to the sight of wounded prey. He made a little motion, still staring at Michael; Nate came up and began unfastening the chains from the boy's wrist restraints. As soon as his hands were free, the boy pulled himself sideways so that he could lick his father's boot, using his whole tongue unreservedly, while Nate unchained his ankles.

Jason pulled the boy's head up by the hair, interrupting his fervent boot-worship. "What  _ do _ you want, son?" 

"Sir, I want you to fuck me, Sir," Devyn responded immediately. His voice, though thick with tears, held no uncertainty. The words felt like a slap in Michael's face. He had known--after all, it had been obvious--but to hear it said outright was something else. It became a stark reality rather than an intellectual concept. Jason had raped his own son.

" _ Me _ ?" Jason asked, as if confused. "Don't you want someone else to fuck you?"

"Sir, no, Sir! Only you. I just want you, Sir." 

"Don't you want Uncle Nate to fuck you?" 

_ Uncle.  _ The word rolled through Michael's mind on a wave of nausea _.  _

_ Give him an inch. _

"Sir, no S—" Devyn caught his tongue. "I don--I--I just want you, Sir, I only want you," he stuttered, increasingly distressed. He reached up to stroke pleading hands over his father's leather clad legs.

Jason pulled the boy's head up further, leaned close to his ear, and stared at Michael, looking truly angry for the first time that night. His menacing growl trickled like scalding water down Michael's skin. 

"Are you sure you don't want Mr.  _ Jacobs _ to fuck you?"

_ Oh, god. _

It finally hit him. That horrible understanding. Jason was jealous. 

_ He's jealous of  _ me _. If he has cameras up at the club, why not in his own dungeon? _

Devyn shook his head.  _ "Sir, no, Sir!  _ I only want  _ you!" _

Jason spat in Devyn’s face, then released his hair and stood. The boy lowered his forehead to the ground and let out a growl as his father abandoned him and stalked over to Michael. Nate took his place by the boy, pulled his shirt up over his head, and undid his pants. The gun belt was gone. 

Jason put his whole hand over Michael's face and pushed his head back, fingers spread so he could see through them. He held him, making him watch, as the muscular blonde man took the boy's neck and shoved him into the ground. Nate ripped the boy's shorts off, and kicked his legs apart.

_ “NO,” _ Michael shouted, but it came out:  _ “UH.” _ Jason’s palm was pushing the silicone nub so that it pinned his tongue down.

"So you don't want my cock, bitch?" Nate snarled, slapping across the back of Devyn’s head. "Huh?" He pulled Devyn's head back by the hair, then released and hit him again. "The world's biggest fucking whore doesn't want his Master's cock?" Before the boy could even begin to answer, Nate started spanking him, hitting his ass so hard the sound of the blows cracked loudly through the room. Devyn's breath cut off and his hands spasmed.

"Yeahhh, you fucking  _ like _ that, don't you? I  _ know _ you fucking like that." Nate was getting off on his own words; his already half-hard cock grew rigid and fat. "You're a fuckin' cock-hungry whore, aren'tcha? Huh? Little cocksucker..." He punctuated his words with blows of his hand. "I'm askin' you a question, bitch!"

_ "S-sir....yeahh," _ Devyn gasped. Nate laughed at him, low and cruel. He shoved three thick fingers into the boy without preparing him at all and thrust them in and out violently. Devyn lurched and cried out, clawing at the floor. Michael gasped in unison with him, his body clenching at the sight.

"You don't care who it is, do you?" Nate chuckled. He caught the boy before he could escape his reach, wrapped his arm around his neck, and arched his shoulders up to force him back against his hand. "You'll take any old cock. You just like getting  _ fucked, _ don't you, little faggot whore?  _ Don't you?"  _

Blood was pouring down the boy's sides now, striping his ass and running down his thighs. Twisting his wrist, Nate shoved in a fourth finger. 

_ "Tell me you want my cock!" _

Devyn screamed, but didn't answer. Michael knew why. The questions were traps. If he agreed with Nate, he would make Jason angry. If he denied it, he would make Nate angry. The cop leered down at his squirming victim, his eyes hungry and excited.

_ "Stop," _ Michael whispered, but again, it was just an unintelligible grunt. 

_ This is really happening. _

Nate shoved the youth's head and shoulders into the floor, pinning him as he moved to kneel behind him. He positioned himself, pulled the boy's ass up into the air, and rumbled in approval. 

"Oh, yeah...that's nice and red..."

"God," Michael groaned. 

_ This is really happening.  _ Had he thought that before? His soul was tearing open, squirming through his chest as though it would escape on its own, leaving him in his chains. He squeezed his eyes shut, and tried to will his pounding heart to slow down.

_ "Watch,"  _ Jason's cold voice hissed in his ear.  _ "You  _ did this. You watch it like a man, or prove to me what a worthless, sniveling bitch you really are."

Michael opened his eyes and turned them to Jason, livid at the blatant manipulation.  _ "I did NOT do this,"  _ he screamed. The words were muffled, but the man understood him.

Jason sneered, unruffled. "Don't try to lie to me, kitten, you're really no good at it. You've been making eyes at him since you met him. Turning his head, making him hard for you, getting him to fucking  _ kiss  _ you." Michael's eyes widened, any hope that Jason hadn't known about the kiss blown away. Jason widened his in return, mocking him. "Did you  _ really _ think I wouldn't find out?" Jason grabbed Michael's hair with his free hand, and clenched it tight. "I know  _ everything  _ that happens in this house!

"What you need to understand,  _ bitch,"  _ he snarled _ ,  _ teeth bared, "is that  _ he  _ belongs to  _ me. I  _ made him.  _ I  _ fucked him to life inside his whore mother.  _ I OWN HIM!  _ And

_ "You. Don't. Touch. My. Property." _ He spat every word of the command separately into Michael's ear. 

On the heels of Jason's words, Michael heard a choking scream and his eyes shifted to the floor. He shut them again, reflexively trying to block out what he'd just seen, but he knew it was an image which would stay with him forever. And he couldn't block out the sounds: the slap of skin on skin, the verbal battery of hatred Nate was cussing down at his victim, or the boy's harsh, clenched-teeth cries. A palm struck against Michael's cheek, pulling his attention away from the sounds that were being gouged into his memory. When he opened his eyes, he saw Nate grab both hands into the open wounds on Devyn's back and use them to jerk him backward, while still thrusting into him. Devyn let out an inhuman, gurgling screech. 

"STOP! FUCKING STOP!" Michael screamed. "FUCKING STOP! PLEASE! PLEASE, PLEASE STOP!"

Jason's palm smashed across Michael's nose and mouth, silencing him enough to make himself heard.

"Do you understand me now, stupid kitten?" Jason hissed, right up against his ear. "You stupid little pussy? Is any of this getting through to you?"

Michael looked straight into Jason's remorseless gray eyes. He had to make them stop. He would do anything to stop them from destroying this young man in front of his eyes. 

_ "Yes," _ he choked.

_ "What?" _ Jason shook his head violently by the hair.

_ "SIR, YES, SIR,"  _ Michael screamed.

Jason rolled his eyes and looked at him with disgust, tilting his head in an expectant gesture. The cries of Jason's son filled Michael's ears and it clicked; he knew what the man wanted from him.

_ "Daddy, I understand," _ he enunciated loudly through the gag. _ "Daddy, please forgive me. Please." _

It was Jason's game. The words he always wanted to hear, the words Michael had never given him. Until now. Tears of hatred stung his eyes and slipped down his cheeks. He was quaking with a melànge of violent emotions so overwhelming that it felt like it was bursting blood vessels in his head.

Jason's mouth twisted into a wide smirk in the face of his forced submission. He released his hard grip, took Michael's head gently in both hands, and kissed his cheek. Michael shook from the effort it took him not to wrench his head away. 

"Good boy," Jason murmured. "Alright, get off him," he said to Nate, interjecting into his tirade of vitriol. The man groaned at the interruption.

"It's always fuckin' something." He shoved the middle of the boy's back, flattening him to the ground, and pulled out of him. Nate stood and pulled his pants back up over his hard cock. His chest was striped with his victim's blood; his hands were smeared red. "Fucking useless whore," he spat, and bent over to slap the back of Devyn's head. Devyn remained on his stomach, legs spread wide. His breaths came in choked gusts. He looked so broken lying there, used and bloody. 

_ It isn't over yet. _

"Master," Michael called, muffled, but audible. He had to get Jason's attention away from the boy. Nothing else mattered anymore. "Daddy? Please, Daddy, I'm sorry. Please, punish me. Punish ME!"

"Get up," Jason said coldly to his son, as if he hadn’t heard Michael at all.

The youth struggled to get onto his knees. Nate cursed impatiently, took him under the arms and hauled him to his feet. Devyn swayed there once he let go, hunched forward and panting. 

"Turn around," Jason ordered.

He did as he was told. He turned in Michael's direction for the first time since they had entered the room. And just when Michael thought he'd seen the worst he could see in one lifetime, he realized he was absolutely wrong.

WHORE.

The word had been carved in big, bloody, block letters all the way across the boy's ribs. The gashes stretched from just below his nipples to a couple of inches above his navel. Blood was crusted over parts of the wounds, but they were cut deep, and fresh, red blood dripped down his belly. Now that Devyn was up, Michael could see it smeared all over the floor where he had been. Michael choked as bile rushed into his mouth at the sight of the boy's mutilated body; he nearly vomited.

_Oh god, what have you done?_ The howling rage in his chest turned to an ice pick of cold sickness. It speared through his core, flattened his anger like a bulldozer, and left him hollow with shock. He couldn't believe even Jason had done something like this, not to his own son. It was a message of pure hatred, gouged into that beautiful flesh. It was meant to scar body, mind and soul. It was meant to last forever.

Jason walked a slow, counter-clockwise circle around the boy, starting from his right side. As he did, he put his left hand over the "W." He dragged his hand possessively over the mutilated flesh, smearing the blood sideways. Devyn trembled in pain, but he held still until the big man had circled around behind him. Large hands settled on the boy’s shoulders as Jason bent down to speak into his ear.

"Well, boy, there he is. There's Mr. Jacobs."

Devyn held in place. He didn't look up.

"There's your boyfriend," Jason prodded. "You want to go kiss him?"

"Sir, no, Sir." His voice was barely more than a whisper.

Somehow, that broken whisper was the trigger, and a black certainty settled over Michael’s heart. He knew what he was going to do. It would probably mean the end of his life, but that no longer mattered. There would be no more vengeful fantasies, no more despair, and no more hope. The knowledge was so absolute that no part of him, not in the furthest reaches of his soul, considered denying it.

He was going to murder Jason Corbin.


End file.
